(Un) Happy go lucky.
Personnel
Lucky Thompson (tenor saxophone), Jo Hrasko (alto saxophone), Marcel Hrasko (baritone saxophone), “Sir” John Peter (Jean-Pierre Sassoon, guitar), André Pacquinot, Charles Verstraete (trombone), Christian Bellest, Fernand Verstraete (trumpet), Benoit Quersin (bass), Gérard “Dave” Pochonet (drums)
Recorded
on April 17 & May 29 in Paris
Released
as Swing LDM 30.039 in 1956
Track listing
Side A: Quick As A Flash / Parisian Knight / Street Scene / Angel Eyes / To You Dear One / But Not Tonight / Side B: A Distant Sound / Once Upon A Time / Still Waters / Theme For A Brown Rose / A Sunkissed Rose / Portrait Of Django
His own man in the continuous flux of jazz music, the saxophonist, great tenor player and early innovator on soprano, was as prime dot in the connection from swing to bop, that interesting period of classic jazz marked by a tension between entertainment and solipsism, even beats and idiosyncrasy, reefer and smack, old guard and new breed, perhaps too simply put but broadly accurate.
For a guy like Thompson, Columbia, South-Carolina-born, Detroit, Michigan-raised, who played in the Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine Count Basie and Stan Kenton bands, with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Jackson, his recording career as a leader was erratic, though littered with plenty gems. And mind you, he appeared on game-changing albums by Thelonious Monk (Genius Of Modern Music Volume 2) and Miles Davis (Walkin’).
One gets the impression that Thompson was a sensitive guy, based on his views on the malicious practices in the jazz business (that he expressed with his typically mellow, humble voice in the introduction of his 1961 Candid album Lord Lord Am I Ever Gonna Know?) and on the latter stages of his life, when he all but disappeared in the 1970’s and even led a homeless life in Seattle in the 1990’s.
Like many of his contemporaries, Thompson found himself in France in the 1950’s and if anything this seems to be a fulfilling period of admiration by the jazz-loving Frenchmen. He enjoyed very productive years in 1956-57, playing with the cream of the French crop, which had been early in picking up on the bebop giants in the 1940’s and had grown into a bunch of high-quality players.
I’ve been enamored by Thompson’s French records ever since I found a 7inch featuring guitarist Jean-Pierre Sassoon many years ago, see below. I’m counting a total of six albums featuring French stalwarts as pianists Martial Solal and Henri Renaud.
That’s 7inch plus 4 LP’s minus the above-shown subject of today, plus the inevitable, veritably and typically topnotch compilation CD from Fresh Sound Records, which also includes pianist and singer Sammy Price’s elusive Avec Lucky Thompson LP, you still with me or does this sound, just like they said about bebop, like Chinese algebra? Raise a finger or a trust fund for confused Flophouse fans if it does. (to add to the pleasant confusion of record collecting, & GPQ Vol. 1 was reissued in the USA immediately by Dawn, & GPAS Vol. 2 by Transition and by Xanadu as Brown Rose in 1985)
Whether you say it in Mandarin, French, English or Dutch, it’s evident you’ll need to state that Lucky seemed to be happy and on a lucky streak. All albums feature small and big ensembles with guys on the same wavelength and Thompson swings suavely and flexibly on sets of tightly arranged standards and original tunes. The one with Martial Solal, & Gérard Pochonet Et Son Quartette Vol.1, gives Thompson ample time to stretch out, it’s a very good one though there’s nothing wrong with the big ensemble albums with shorter tunes, notably Vol.2. This album also features Solal, drummer Gérard Pochonet, guitarist Jean-Pierre Sasson and, among others, curiously, two sets of brothers, alto and baritone saxophonists Jo and Marcel Hrasko and trumpeter and trombonist Fernand and Charles Verstraete. It’s all in the family.
You can’t but be helpless against Lucky’s sensuous notes of joy and sorrow, phrased like he didn’t want to put too much bite on them, like he wanted it to be like breathing, soft as velvet, like a language that doesn’t needs words to be understood. Not to be mistaken for a sentimental journey, a fest of marshmallows and candy canes, no, there’s also the murmur of the after hours juke joint in Kansas City to Lucky’s tone and style and the French, in 1956, understood this very well, spurring him on with elegance and verve.
There is, as they say, something for everyone, mid-tempo swing, fast burners, bittersweet ballads, all packaged in a lush big band sound, featuring excellent little tastes of Solal – The Parisian Knight – and Sasson – Portrait Of Django – and many fine moments of Thompson, immaculate balladeer of Angel Eyes and bop-ish swinger of Still Waters.
You love Lucky Thompson like you love Hank Mobley, admiring his one-of-a-kind spin on what went before, his crafting of what is simultaneously mellow and smoky, and good to the ear and heart.
Lucky Thompson passed away in 2005 in Seattle.
Listen a.o. to & Gérard Dave Pochonet All Stars on In Paris on Fresh Sound below: