Carei Thomas' career got its start in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he took piano lessons and was influenced by the culturally diverse Hill District.

Carei's family moved to Chicago during his teenage years. While in high school, he formed a doo-wop group and continued expanding his artistry through an interest in spontaneous vocal composition. In 1959, Carei met Gregory "Duke" Hall who was staying on Chicago's West Side where Carei lived.  

Carei Thomas, Todd Harper, guest Brian Roessler and Paul Cantrell shown at the 2012 Studio Z performance

In the late 1960's, Carei sat-in on piano with Dexter Gordon and Art Taylor in Paris and in 1972, Carei moved to Minneapolis and briefly studied composition at the University of Minnesota. He then began developing several controlled improvisational concepts he called "Brief Realities".

In the 1980's, Carei worked on other evolutions of controlled improvisations, became interested in the healing aspects of sound and color, and in having his artform be more than a performer/spectator one with "down to earth" functionality. In the 1990's, Carei added to his work the "smoke and mirrors" of acoustical and electronic music considerations, which he called Phononomalies. He liked developing these tonal fabrics (sound designs) to use them as a canvas accommodating the collaborative endeavors of poetry, spoken work, dance, video, visual artforms, theatre, etc. along with their closest friend ... Silence. 

In 1993, Carei became seriously ill with Guillain-Barré Syndrome and was hospitalized and in physical rehabilitation until 1995. However, he continued to create and has adapted his hands to produce chords much like the ones before he was paralyzed.