Edgar Charles Thompson, known professionally as Eddie Thompson (31 May 1925 – 6 November 1986) was a British jazz pianist.
Biography
Thompson was born blind in
London, England.
After studying at the same school for the blind as
George Shearing, he recorded with
Victor Feldman in the late 1940s and also with the
Carlo Krahmer
Carlo Krahmer (born William Max Geserick, 11 March 1914, Shoreditch, London – 20 April 1976, London) was a British jazz drummer and record producer.
Biography
Born in Shoreditch, London, Krahmer was partially sighted. He made has first re ...
Band at the Paris Jazz Fair in 1949.
In the 1950s, he worked with
Tony Crombie (making records with Crombie under his own name),
Vic Ash,
Freddy Randall
Frederick James 'Freddy' Randall (6 May 1921 – 18 May 1999) was an English jazz trumpeter and bandleader born in Clapton, East London.
Biography
Born in Clapton, East London at the age of just 18 Randall led the St. Louis Four in 1939, ...
and
Tommy Whittle and was house pianist at
Ronnie Scott’s
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club that has operated in Soho, London, since 1959.
History
The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was set up and managed by musicians Ronnie Sco ...
from 1959 until 1960.
From 1962 to 1972, he lived and worked in the US at Hickory House, a well-known jazz club (started up in 1933) at 52nd Street, Manhattan, New York.
He led his own trio featuring
Len Skeat and
Martin Drew, which recorded an album with
Spike Robinson.
Thompson also formed a duo with
Roger Kellaway. Thompson was considered by many to be a 'dazzlingly inventive player' during his early recording career.
Thompson was recorded in the early 1980s by
Hep Records,
including ''Memories of You'' (1983).
He was known to have used the
Underground to get to the clubs in London.
He had a lifelong smoking habit which caused him to develop
emphysema
Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...
, which contributed to his early death in London in November 1986, at the age of 61. At the time of his death he was noted as being at "the height of his powers" as well as having a considerable musical repertoire.
'' AllMusic'', Retrieved 25 May 2020.
During the 70s, Eddie regularly travelled up to Stockport
Stockport is a town and borough in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey here.
Most of the town is within ...
on Fridays, with his dog of course. During the day he would perform piano tuning at Nield and Hardy's, one of the two major musical instrument stores in the town. Just round the corner from the store was the Warren Buckley pub and beneath was a jazz cellar where Eddie ( with dog under the piano ) played during the evening with two local musicians making up the trio. One notable evening touring American greats, Al Grey and Buddy Tate who was deputising for Jimmy Forrest, played a memorable session with Eddie's trio.
References
Bibliography
*''The Rough Guide to Jazz'', Ian Carr, Digby Fairweather, Brian Priestley, Charles Alexander - 2004,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Eddie
1925 births
1986 deaths
British jazz pianists
20th-century pianists
20th-century British musicians
Blind musicians
English blind people