Sir Charles Thompson

The elegantly nicknamed Sir Charles Thompson was mostly of the musicians connected with swing who was simply able to create a graceful, wholehearted transition to bop at that time the revolution was happening. His piano design can be light-fingered and extra within a witty, inventive, Basie-descended bop way, and he could adapt it successfully to the body organ. Thompson’s first device was the violin, however the piano beckoned when he was an adolescent, and he began working with place rings within the midwest in the past due 1930s. He briefly became a member of Lionel Hampton in 1940, but still left to be able to work with little groups and lead preparations to Basie, Hampton, Fletcher Henderson, Jimmy Dorsey, as well as other rings. While employed in New York’s 52nd St. night clubs during World Battle II, he begun to detect the origins of bop. In 1944-1945, Thompson performed within the Coleman Hawkins/Howard McGhee music group, journeying to Hollywood together to record many terrific golf swing/bop edges for Capitol (today on Hollywood Stampede) and in addition his lively melody “Girls’ Lullaby” for Asch. Therefore thoroughly got Thompson consumed the vocabulary and ethos of bop that he could write among the quintessential classics from the idiom, “Robbins’ Nest,” which became popular for Sir Charles’ following company, Illinois Jacquet, and motivated a haunting, pathbreaking Gil Evans agreement for Claude Thornhill in 1947. Thompson documented several little group albums for Vanguard within the ’50s, and two even more for Columbia in 1959 and 1960, and made an appearance like a sideman for Buck Clayton and Jimmy Hurrying, but spent a lot of the ’50s freelancing as an organist. He toured the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico within the ’60s leading little groups, in addition to European countries with Clayton. Carrying out a bout of sick health, he came back to actions in 1975. His early bop edges for Apollo, including some with Hawkins and Charlie Parker, can be found around the Delmark reissue Takin’ Off.