Eli "Lucky" Thompson was one of jazz's most confident and engaging tenor saxophonists. On recordings, his imagination on solos was so fast and bountiful that he filled virtually every spare space with warm, exciting ideas. Over the course of his career, Thompson was artistically most at home in Paris, as evidenced by his exhilarating slippery and smokey sound on recordings made there in the 1950s. In recent years, his Paris recordings have been released haphazardly on French and American labels, only to drift out of print. Now, we have all of them on two new sets from Fresh Sound.
The first is Lucky Thompson: The Complete Parisian Small-Group Sessions 1956-1959, a four-CD set that comes with a glossy 34-page booklet featuring color and black-and-white images and lengthy notes by Jordi Pujol. The second is a single CD—Lucky Thompson in Paris 1956: The All Star Orchestra Sessions. The fidelity on both sets is remarkable.
Born in Columbia, S.C., Thompson moved with his family to Ohio and then Detroit. After nearly 15 years of recording with top jazz bands and ensembles, Thompson moved to Paris in early 1956 after enduring professional problems that involved unfairness and unemployment. There were songs he wrote that weren't credited to him, clubs that tried to stiff him and record labels that shortchanged him and repeatedly passed over him when staffing dates. The work dried up.
Back in the late 1940s and early '50s, he was considered "difficult' by those skilled in chiseling musicians. Thompson simply grew wearing trying to figure out why he wasn't receiving what he was promised or due, going so far as to start his own publishing company in the late 1940s.
Prior to leaving for Paris, Thompson had established himself as a saxophone giant with a distinct sound. He first recordings were with Hot Lips Page in 1944. He recorded with Count Basie later that same year and into the first half of 1945 before recording with Boyd Raeburn's band in 1945 and '46. Thompson recorded with Charlie Parker in 1946 and '49, Johnnie Ray in 1951, Thelonious Monk in 1952, King Pleasure in 1954 and Oscar Pettiford in 1956 before leaving for Paris. During a return visit to the States that year, he recorded again with Pettiford and on Stan Kenton's Cuban Fire.
As these Paris recordings show, Lucky was spiritually free in France. His playing on standards is polished and daring, while his work on his own compositions is tremendously exciting. That's one of the great treats of this set: Thompson was a brilliant songwriter, and it shows on songs such as Passin' Time, Nothing But the Soul and Why Weep?, to name just a few.
On many of the recordings, Thompson unleashes ideas as if he's operating a Singer sewing machine. His quick thinking and steady precision take you aback. In addition, while Thompson could latch on to an uptempo song like a tiger, he was deeply emotional on ballads such as Time on My Hands and Everything Happens to Me.
But what makes this set especially rewarding are the many groups in which he recorded. There are 19 different ones in all, which means different musical moods and challenges on each one, and the results are never dull. Among these varied sessions are eight bluesy tracks with pianist Sammy Price and four hard boppers with drummer Kenny Clarke that features a masterful version of Four. All of the French sidemen on this set are terrific and easily on par with their American counterparts. There are simply too many to list here.
The all-star orchestra sessions of 1956 include a crack Quincy Jones-influenced band led by Herni Renaud and three recording sessions with drummer Gerard Pochonet. All of songs recorded by Pochonet were written and arranged by Thompson and equal to Quincy Jones's work during this period. Which makes one wonder why Thompson wasn't arranging for Basie and other big bands in the States.
Thompson returned to the U.S. in 1963 and recorded here through 1968 before moving to Lausanne, Switzerland. In the early 1970s, Thompson returned to New York, taught at Dartmouth in New Hampshire in 1973 and '74 and then disappeared. He reportedly lived for a time on Manitoulin Island in Ontario and in Georgia before moving to Oregon, where he was largely homeless in the 1990s and early 2000s. There may have been mental illness issues that went unmedicated.
Lucky Thompson died in Seattle in 2005. He was 81.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Lucky Thompson's Complete Parisian Small-Group Sessions 1956-1959 here and here.
You'll find Lucky Thompson in Paris 1956: The All Star Orchestra Sessions here and here.
JazzWax clips: Here's Passin' Time...
Here's But Not for Tonight...
And here's Easy Going...
