St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
, 1943) is an American
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
flautist
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
and
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
, best known for his work as a composer of
third stream
Third stream is a music genre that is a fusion of jazz and classical music. The term was coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller in a lecture at Brandeis University. Improvisation is generally seen as a vital component of third stream.
Schull ...
music.
Early life
Tompkins played in his native Missouri for several years after high school and attended the St. Louis Institute of Music starting in 1964, pairing it with summer courses at
Berklee College
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level course ...
and the Aspen Music School. During this period he received instruction from Lee Humphreys, Trudy Kane, Graham Hollobon, Harold Bennett, Manus Sasonkin, Lukas Foss, and
Vincent Persichetti
Vincent Ludwig Persichetti (June 6, 1915 – August 14, 1987) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, he was known for his integration of various new ideas in musical composition into his own wo ...
. Early influences on his study and playing were John Coltrane,
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
,
Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) was a jazz combo established in 1952 that played music influenced by classical music, classical, cool jazz, blues and bebop. For most of its history the Quartet consisted of John Lewis (pianist), John Lewis (piano), ...
,
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ''Ne ...
and
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
.
Jazz career
1960s
In 1967 he changed his base of operations to New York City and developed an important relationship with jazz drummer Elvin Jones, with whom he would make recordings which also featured
Joe Farrell
Joseph Carl Firrantello (December 16, 1937 – January 10, 1986), known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who primarily performed as a saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name o ...
, Jimmy Owens and other musicians. His career was put on hold, however, when he was conscripted in 1968. He was, however, able to find time to compose during this period, and it was during this time that his composition "Yes" found its way on to Elvin's LP ''Polycurrents''.
1970s
After three years of service, he returned to New York and continued to compose, perform and record. It was during this time that he became associated with the New Music Circle and premiered his composition "Four Lines" for flute, oboe, string bass and drums. His first LP "The Compositions of Fred Tompkins" showed him firmly rooted in third Stream composition, and featured the playing of Jones, Farrell, Owens,
Wilbur Little
Wilbur "Doc" Little (March 5, 1928 – May 4, 1987) was an American jazz bassist known for playing hard bop and post-bop.
Little originally played piano, but switched to double bass after serving in the military. In 1949 he moved to Washington, ...
, and Richard Davis. His next LP "Somesville", again featured challenging compositions, this time played by Jones,
Lenny White
Leonard "Lenny" White III (born December 19, 1949) is an American jazz fusion drummer who was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s. White has been called "one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion". He has won ...
,
Gene Perla
Gene Perla (born March 1, 1940) is an American jazz bassist.
Career
At the Berklee School of Music and the Boston Conservatory Perla concentrated on piano before moving to double bass. In 1969 he spent one year as a member of the Woody Herman Or ...
,
Buster Williams
Charles Anthony "Buster" Williams (born April 17, 1942) is an American jazz bassist. Williams is known for his membership in pianist Herbie Hancock's early 1970s group, working with guitarist Larry Coryell from the 1980s to present, working in th ...
rhythm section
A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band.
The rhythm sec ...
when there is one, to complement and propel the swing jazz feeling.
1980s–present
The 1980s saw Tompkins setting music to the poetry of Emily Dickinson and
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...
( Lucy Shelton premiered his "Three Poems to E. E. Cummings" in a “live” radio broadcast on WBAI-FM radio in New York City), and in the 1990s he composed music to pieces by
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...
and St. Louis poet Michael Castro. The early 1980s also saw the premier of pieces Tompkins composed for the
French horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...
player John Clark, which also incorporated the use of
string synthesizer
A string synthesizer or string machine is a specialized synthesizer designed specifically to make sounds similar to that of a string orchestra.
Dedicated string synthesizers occupied a specific musical instrument niche between electronic organs ...
,
arco bass
The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar a ...
Paul DeMarinis
Paul DeMarinis (1948) is an American visual and sound artist, specializing in electronic music composer, sound, performance, and computer-based artist. Since the 1970s he has been active in creating digital sound sculptures, one of the early inno ...
,
Chuck Loeb
Charles Samuel "Chuck" Loeb (December 7, 1955 – July 31, 2017) was an American jazz guitarist and a member of the groups Steps Ahead, Metro and Fourplay.
Early years and education
Loeb was born in Nyack, New York, near New York City. At a ...
,
Frank Tusa
Frank Tusa (born April 1, 1947) is an American jazz double-bassist, composer, educator.
Tusa played guitar before switching to bass at age ten. He worked in a Broadway pit orchestra and then played while serving in the Army. Tusa worked with Paul ...
,
Lawrence Feldman
Lawrence may refer to:
Education Colleges and universities
* Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States
* Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States
Preparator ...
Norman Carey
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
, Anthony Jackson and many others. In 1990, he returned to St. Louis and continues to compose, perform (most notably with Debby Lennon, Ralph Butler,
Gary Sykes
Gary Sykes (born 13 February 1984) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2006 to 2016. He held the British super-featherweight title twice between 2010 and 2014, and challenged for the Commonwealth super-featherweight and li ...
and Charlie Dent, and Dave Black), announce on radio and participate on the board of the New Music Circle. His CD ''There is a Zone'' is a compilation of all his recorded music to the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
Critical reviews
*“Outstanding in the first half of the program was Fred Tompkins’ “Four Lines”. Especially fine was the improvisatory drum part played by the great jazz drummer, Elvin Jones.”
*"The results f the LP ''Cécile''are pieces — harmonically and tonally varied and melodically strong — which make use of woodwind sounds and have a firm underpinning of often driving piano lines and swinging but rhythmically broken bass and drum lines." — J. De Muth, ''Down Beat Magazine''
Partial Discography
;As leader:
*''The Compositions of Fred Tompkins'' (1973, Festival 9001)
*''Somesville'' (1975, Festival 9002)
*''Cécile'' (1978, FKT 103)
*''St. Louis Music'' (1999, The Orchard)
*''Fanfare 8'' (The Early Works of Fred Tompkins - compilation) (2000, The Orchard)
*''Freedom Ring'' (2001)
*''Cécile'' (2003, 2nd edition - compilation)
*''There Is A Zone'' (2004)
*''Curve Extended'' (2006, The Orchard)''All Music Guide to Jazz'' (2010 Edition).
;As sideman with Elvin Jones:
*''
Poly-Currents
''Poly-Currents'' is an album by American jazz drummer Elvin Jones recorded in 1969 and released on the Blue Note label.Blue Note)