Eddie Thompson Trio

Edgar Charles Thompson entered the world on 31 May 1925 in London, England, and departed on 6 November 1986 in the same city. Sightless from birth, he mastered the piano during childhood. By the closing years of the 1940s he had become a familiar presence in London’s club scene, collaborating there with Carlo Krahmer, Vic Feldman and additional musicians. Throughout the following decade he appeared on radio broadcasts and in studio ensembles, issued discs both as a leader and alongside Tony Crombie, Tommy Whittle, Freddy Randall and further artists, and finished the period as the resident pianist at Ronnie Scott’s club. In the opening years of the 1960s he relocated to the United States, where he performed regularly at New York’s Hickory House. Returning to Britain in the early 1970s, he formed a trio that traveled widely and often supported visiting American jazz figures such as Buddy Tate, Ruby Braff and Spike Robinson.

An astonishingly resourceful pianist in his youth, Thompson occasionally favored showy execution over emotional depth, yet later produced numerous striking concert performances throughout the United Kingdom. Possessing a vast catalogue of material, he proved an ideal accompanist whenever he shared musical rapport with a guest soloist. Record labels long neglected his unaccompanied work, a situation Alastair Robertson of Hep Records addressed through several outstanding sessions in the early 1980s. Thompson’s passing at sixty-one occurred while his abilities remained at their peak.