Don Thompson

Bassist, pianist, vibraphonist, drummer, composer, teacher, Don Thompson is the archetype of a west coast phenomenon on the Canadian jazz scene, that of the multi-instrumentalist, perpetuated by Pat Collins, Phil Dwyer, Hugh Fraser, Alan Matheson, Ross Taggart and Brad Turner. Thompson's combined versatility and virtuosity is all the more remarkable for the fact that he is effectively self taught, save for piano lessons as a boy in Powell River.

By the time he had moved to Vancouver in 1960 he had also taken an interest in bass and vibraphone; he was soon playing bass with Chris Gage, Dave Robbins and Wilf Wylie, among the city's veteran musicians, and was variously heard on all three

instruments at the Cellar and Flat Five with his contemporaries and with visiting American musicians. One of the latter, John Handy, invited Thompson and drummer Terry Clarke to join his San Francisco quintet in 1965.

The Canadians made two LP's with the alto saxophonist, Live at Monterey (1965 Columbia/ Koch Jazz), one of the most popular jazz recordings of the decade and John Handy’s 2nd Album (1966, Columbia/Koch Jazz). Thompson played bass on each, showing even at this early date some of the fleetness and flexibility, after the example of Scott LaFaro, that would characterize his later work with an ever-widening range of musicians. A third Canadian, guitarist Sonny Greenwich, joined the Handy quintet during Thompson’s tenure; their association with Thompson at the piano would continue at intervals in Toronto and Montreal for more than 30 years.

Thompson left Handy in 1967, moved to Toronto in 1968 and made his first LP as a pianist, Love Song for a Virgo Lady, with Greenwich and others for Radio Canada International in 1969; it was packaged commercially in 1972 by Sackville with a second RCI transcription by Greenwich himself, The Old Man and the Child. Both recordings showed the influence of John Coltrane, as did another RCI transcription, Don Thompson Quartet (1977), which featured Michael Stuart.

Thompson also played piano on A Country Place (1975, PM) and on the Greenwich LP’s Sun Song and Evol-ution, Love’s Reverse, as well as the guitarists later CD from the Montreal Bistro with Kenny Wheeler. The Thompson piano style, influenced by the immediate examples of Chris Gage and later George Shearing and more generally by Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, is expansive, at times verging on rhapsodic; his improvisations developed with a sweeping to-and-fro motion, almost staccato from note to note, but flowing smoothly over the length of the phrase, relatively free of either dramatic melodic gestures or pronounced emotional inflections.

Greenwich (and Wheeler) aside, Thompson has steered a comparatively conservative course through jazz, serving as bassist, 1969-82 and pianist 1988-92 with the Boss Brass, for example and as bassist 1970-4 and pianist 1975-8 with Moe Koffman’s quintet. He appeared on all of the former’s recordings and most of the latter’s LP’s during these periods. Both bands recorded versions of Days Gone By, the most popular of his many compositions.

Confirming his affinity for guitarists, Thompson played bass and more rarely drums during the early 1970’s with Lenny Breau and began a productive collaboration as a bassist and/or pianist with Ed Bickert in 1975. The LP Ed Bickert/Don Thompson (1978, Sackville) won a Juno Award in 1979, followed by a second album of duets, Dance to the Lady (Sackville), in 1980. Thompson’s other recordings with Bickett have included trio and orchestral sessions, the Bickert-Greenwich collaboration Days Gone By and LPs 1975-81 by four American musicians, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, trombonist Frank Rosolino, cornetist Ruby Braff, and tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate; Thompson was in fact responsible for taping Desmond’s performances in 1975 at Bourbon Street.

Similarly, Thompson played bass at Bourbon Street in 1975 on Jim Hall’s acclaimed LP Live (Horizon) again operating the recording equipment. He later appeared on the American guitarist’s LP’s Commitment (1976, Horizon/A&M) and Circles (1981, Concord Jazz) as well as the CD Jim Hall & Friends Vol. 1 (1990, Musicmasters), all recorded in New York.

Two of Thompson’s own recordings in this period also found him in the company of guitarists, the duo LP Bells (1981-2 Umbrella) with Rob Piltch and the quartet LP A Beautiful Friendship (1984, Concord Jazz) with the American John Abercrombie and others. A Beautiful Friendship brought Thompson is second Juno in 1985 and was followed by another recording session with Abercrombie in 1986, Witchcraft, issued on CD by Justin Time in 1991. The Thompson piano style, influenced by the immediate examples of Chris Gage and later George Shearing and more generally by Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, is expansive, at times verging on rhapsodic

Having performed abroad with Jim Hall, Thompson traveled even more extensively as bassist and occasional duo-pianist 1983-7 with the British pianist George Shearing. He played on three of Shearing’s Concord Jazz releases, Top Drawer (1983), Live at the Café Carlyle (1984) and An Evening at Charlie’s (1985), the first and last with singer Mel Tormé.

Post Shearing, Thompson reaffirmed his place on the Toronto scene with several bands, including the Dave McMurdo Jazz Orchestra, JMOG (Pat Labarbara), the Toronto Jazz Quartet (Archie Alleyne) and a succession of his own bands. One, a quartet with Thompson at the vibraphone, recorded Winter Mist (The Jazz Alliance) in 1990 and toured Canada’s jazz festivals in 1991. Another, an octet known as the Banff All Stars, with Thompson at piano, recorded Celebration (Jazz Focus) in 1996 and appeared at Canadian festivals in 1998, marking the 25th anniversary of the Banff (Alberta) Jazz Workshop, where Thompson, in another of his guises, had taught piano since 1982.

Thompson has in fact been a guiding figure at Banff, at colleges and universities in the Toronto area and through private instruction to a generation of younger Canadian musicians, among them pianists Jon Ballantyne, James Gelfand, Jeff Johnston, Diana Krall, Andy Milne and Dave Restivo and bassists, Andrew Downing, Sylvain Gagnon, Rosemary Galloway, George Mitchell and Alec Walkington.

Thompson has been a guiding figure at Banff, at colleges and universities in the Toronto area and through private instruction to a generation of younger Canadian musicians He would also play an important role in Trudy Desmond’s return to performance in 1987, adding her CDs, R.S.V.P., Make Me Rainbows and My One and Only to four with the McMurdo orchestra and others made locally on one instrument or another with JMOG, the Brass Connection (The Brass connection and A New Look) Gene DiNovi (How Beautiful Is Night and Rememberance) Jim Galloway (Walking on Air, Saturday Night Function and Thou Swell), Bill King (Moment’s Notice) and Doug Riley (Bedtime Story and Dreams).

His standing with visiting musicians has remained high throughout this same extended period, both in clubs and recording studios. His work with American pianists for the Sackville label, for example, includes four LPs 1972-83 with Jay McShann (The Man from Muskogee, Tuxedo Junction, Swingmatism and Just a Lucky So and So) and one CD each with Don Friedman in 1992 (Opus d’Amour) and Junior Manee in 1997 (Milestones). Thompson worked again with John Handy, now as his pianist, at the Montreal Bistro during the 1990’s and participated with Terry Clarke in a reunion of the saxophonists, “Monterey” quintet at the San Francisco club Yoshi’s in 1994, an event documented by Live at Yoshi’s Nitespot (Boulevard), Thompson also returned to George Shearing’s side, now as the vibraphonist in Shearing’s quintet, for the CD Christmas (1998, Telarc) and for appearances stateside in 1999 and 2000.

Thompson vibraphone style draws more directly from bebop than does his piano or bass work. The apparent influence here is Milt Jackson – Jackson in something of a hurry but still swing hard – and it finds Thompson under some stress relative to the impassive ease and grace with which he typically handles the other instruments.

* Reprinted from the Miller Companion to Jazz in Canada Mercury Press, courtesy of Mark Miller. This concert will be recorded by CBC for future broadcast.