Lucky Thompson

Created in Columbia, SC, on June 16, 1924, tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson bridged the distance between your physical dynamism of golf swing as well as the cerebral intricacies of bebop, emerging as you of his instrument’s foremost professionals along with a stylist par quality. Eli Thompson’s lifelong nickname — the byproduct of the jersey, provided him by his dad, with the term “lucky” stitched over the upper body — would demonstrate bitterly unacceptable: when he was five, his mom died, and the rest of his years as a child, spent mainly in Detroit, was specialized in helping increase his young siblings. Thompson cherished music, but without wish of acquiring a musical instrument of his personal, he ran chores to earn plenty of money to get an instructional publication within the saxophone, filled with fingering graph. Then carved imitation lines and secrets right into a broom deal with, teaching himself to learn music years before he ever performed a genuine sax. Based on star, Thompson finally received his very own saxophone unintentionally — a delivery firm mistakenly fell one off at his house alongside some home furniture, and after graduating senior high school and functioning briefly being a barber, he agreed upon on with Erskine Hawkins’ ‘Bama Condition Collegians, touring using the group until 1943, when he became a member of Lionel Hampton and resolved in NEW YORK. Immediately after his entrance in ny, Thompson was tapped to displace Ben Webster during his regular gig on the 52nd Road membership the Three Deuces — Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Youthful, and Artwork Tatum had been all in attendance at Thompson’s debut gig, even though he considered the performance a tragedy (a notorious perfectionist, he was seldom if ever happy with his function), he even so quickly gained the respect of his peers and became a membership fixture. Following a stint with bassist Slam Stewart, Thompson once again toured with Hampton before signing up for vocalist Billy Eckstine’s short-lived big music group that included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Artwork Blakey — quite simply, the crucible of bebop. But although he performed on a number of the first and most important bop schedules, Thompson never suit squarely inside the movement’s paradigm — his playing boasted an style and formal power all his very own, with an psychological depth rare one of the tenor greats of his era. He became a member of the Count number Basie Orchestra in past due 1944, exiting the next calendar year while in LA and staying there until 1946, within the interim playing on and getting a series of schedules for the Special label. Thompson came back to the street when Gillespie employed him to displace Parker within their epochal combo — he also performed on Parker’s landmark March 28, 1946, program for Dial, which same yr was an associate from the Charles Mingus and Friend Collette-led Celebrities of Golf swing which, sadly, under no circumstances recorded. Thompson came back to NY in 1947, leading his personal band in the famed Savoy Ballroom. The next yr, he produced his Western debut in the Great Jazz Festival, and continued to feature on classes headlined by Thelonious Monk and Kilometers Davis (the seminal Walkin’). Supported by way of a group dubbed the Lucky Seven that included trumpeter Harold Johnson and altoist Jimmy Powell, Thompson lower his 1st studio session like a innovator on August 14, 1953, coming back the next March 2. Generally he continued to be a sideman throughout his career, nevertheless, enjoying an especially fruitful cooperation with Milt Jackson that yielded many LPs through the mid-’50s. But many music artists, not forgetting sector executives, discovered Thompson difficult to cope with — he was notoriously outspoken in what he regarded the unfair power wielded on the jazz business by record brands, music web publishers, and booking realtors, and in Feb 1956 he searched for to flee these “vultures” by relocating his family members to Paris. 8 weeks later he became a member of Stan Kenton’s French tour, also time for the U.S. with Kenton’s group, but he shortly discovered himself blacklisted by Louis Armstrong’s supervisor, Joe Glaser, following a bizarre issue with the cherished jazz pioneer over which musician ought to be the initial to keep their airplane after getting. Without steady function, he came back to Paris, reducing several periods with manufacturer Eddie Barclay. Thompson continued to be in France until 1962, time for New York along with a calendar year afterwards headlining the Prestige LP Has Jerome Kern no More, which highlighted pianist Hank Jones. For this same period his wife passed away, and likewise to struggling to improve their children by himself, Thompson’s old fights using the jazz power framework also continued to be, and in 1966 he officially announced his pension in the webpages of Down Defeat magazine. Within several months he came back to active responsibility, but remained discouraged with the market and his personal ability — through the March 20, 1968, day captured for the Candid Compact disc Lord, Lord Am I Ever Gonna Understand?, he says “Personally i think I have just scratched the top of what I understand I am with the capacity of performing.” From past due 1968 to 1970, Thompson resided in Lausanne, Switzerland, touring broadly across European countries before coming back the U.S., where he trained music at Dartmouth College or university and in 1973 led his last recording, I GIVE YOU. The remaining years of Thompson’s lifestyle are in huge part a secret — he spent many years living on Ontario’s Manitoulin Isle before relocating to Savannah, GA, trading his saxophones in trade for dental function. He ultimately migrated towards the Pacific Northwest, and following a long amount of homelessness examined into Seattle’s Columbia Town Assisted Living Middle in 1994. Thompson continued to be in assisted treatment until his loss of life on July 30, 2005.