Lucky Thompson

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Eli (Lucky) Thompson (June 16, 1924 in Columbia, South Carolina – July 30, 2005 in Seattle, Washington) was an African American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist.

He is considered, alongside Steve Lacy, to have brought the soprano saxophone out of obsolescence, playing it in a more advanced boppish format, which inspired John Coltrane to take it up in the early 1960s.

After playing with the swing orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Don Redman, Billy Eckstine, Lucky Millinder, and Count Basie, he worked in rhythm and blues and then established a career in bop and hard bop, working with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson. Thompson was an inspired soloist capable of a very personal style where tradition coming from Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, and Don Byas was wisely mixed with a modern grasp of harmony. He showed those capabilities as sideman in albums like Stan Kenton's record "Cuban Fire", but also in those under his name. In both conditions he recorded many albums during the mid-1950s. He appeared on Charlie Parker's Los Angeles Dial Records sessions and on Miles Davis's historic hard bop Walkin' session. He lived in Lausanne, Switzerland in the late 1960s and recorded several albums there including "A Lucky Songbook in Europe". He taught at Dartmouth College in 1973 and 1974, then left the music business completely, as a consequence of the racial discrimination and treatment he received from record companies and clubs. Playing at his best level, which he reached many times, Thompson can be considered as member of the "top-ten" league in the field of tenor saxophone.

In his last years he lived in the Pacific Northwest and suffered from Alzheimer's Disease.