Len Digs Through Dust: ‘Who had the unluckiest nickname in jazz?’

Nicknames decorate the jazz landscape. Some were titles bestowed in admiration: ‘King’ Joe Oliver, Lester ‘Pres’ Young, ‘Duke’ Ellington, ‘Count’ Basie, Billie ‘Lady Day’ Holiday.

Then there were the monickers affectionately rooted in physical appearance: Louis ‘Satchmo’ (contraction of ‘Satchelmouth’) Armstrong, ‘Muggsy’ Spanier, ‘Fats’ Waller, ‘Shorty’ Rogers, Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson, ‘Big Sid’ Catlett, ‘Chubby’ Jackson, Milt ‘Bags’ Jackson (apparently, gigantic bags under hungover eyes).

Others hinted at behaviour: ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie, Johnny ‘Rabbit’ Hodges, ‘Wild Bill’ Davison, Sarah ‘Sassy’ Vaughan, ‘Brute’ for Ben Webster and ‘Tricky’ Sam Nanton.

However, while I’m at a loss to explain the origins of ‘Trigger’ Alpert, ‘Fud’ Livingstone or ‘Mousy’ Alexander, the real mystery’s always been how saxophonist Eli Thompson collected the nickname ‘Lucky’ when he was anything but.

And it’s not as though his career had an unpromising start. Born in 1924, he seemed destined to play tenor, practising saxophone fingerings on a broom handle before he’d encountered his first proper instrument. And when he did, Coleman Hawkins was his No. 1 influence followed by pioneer bopper, Don Byas. In his New York Times obituary, fellow tenor player Johnny Griffin remembered other stylistic pointers: “Lucky had that same thing that Paul Gonsalves had, that melodic smoothness. He wasn’t rough like Ben Webster and he didn’t play in the Lester Young style. He was a beautiful balladeer. But he played with all the modernists.”

In 1942, Thompson joined Erskine Hawkins’ orchestra, moving on through the bands of Lionel Hampton, Don Redman and Billy Eckstine, that nucleus of bebop where he met both embryonic jazz radicals, Parker and Gillespie. He also worked with Lucky Millinder and Count Basie before associating himself even further with the bop avant-garde, playing in small groups alongside altoist Charlie Parker, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson and drummer Kenny Clarke. Pretty much, as Griffin said, ‘all the modernists’.

Thompson did well on disc, as a sideman with Stan Kenton, Charlie Parker, Milt Jackson and Miles Davis (hear him on Davis’s ‘Walkin’’ session). He led sessions for the Prestige, ABC Paramount and Disques Vogue labels. But it was as a leader that something went catastrophically sour in his relationships with label management and bookers that he didn’t even bother to muzzle his criticism of the music business, bandying terms like ‘parasites’ and ‘vultures’ (‘Fear and Loathing’ writer Hunter S. Thompson’s was no relation, but he held parallel views on the subject: “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”).

In 1957, disillusioned with the U.S. scene, he quit to live in Paris until 1962. To some, it might be known as ‘the City Of Light’, but to saxophonists, it’s home to some of the world’s most highly respected wind instrument manufacturers. At some point, Thompson was tempted to test a soprano saxophone manufactured by the celebrated Henri Selmer et Cie. It was an interesting move.

In its early years, the soprano saxophone was little more than a vaudeville novelty instrument, but after falling into the hands of New Orleans-born Sidney Bechet (by the 50s, a French resident who’d attained close to Trésor National status), it garnered success in early jazz circles. But the soprano has seldom been without its detractors, presenting players with a formidable range of pitch and intonation problems. Bechet’s approach was to blow fff and authoritatively with plenty of passion and shedloads of vibrato, yet always hitting the desired note dead centre. And, while master alto saxophonist Johnny ‘Rabbit’ Hodges also played sublime soprano, he didn’t play it often enough to make the instrument popular (all because of a financially based feud between him and his employer, Duke Ellington).

So, by the mid-40s, few modern jazzmen apart from Steve Lacy (yet another saxophonist who’d moved to Paris), played the horn and he’d actually started as a traditionalist. Thompson’s approach was audibly different and bore scant resemblance to his full tenor tone. Somehow, his unique combination of mouthpiece, reed, embouchure and fingers tamed the beast, producing an ethereal tone, firm, understated, emotionally cool and low on vibrato. Different. And exquisite.

Thompson returned to the U.S. in 1962 and, the following year with the unimprovable line-up of Hank Jones, piano, Wendell Marshall, bass and Dave Bailey, drums, recorded the album ‘Jerome Kern and No More’ for Bob Weinstock’s Prestige label. It was taped at the legendary Englewood Cliffs’ studio in New Jersey owned and operated by Rudy van Gelder, the maestro of independent engineers (RvG, actually an optometrist by profession, worked for both Blue Note and Prestige. Jazz wits have been known to pose the question: “what’s the difference between a Blue Note recording and a Prestige recording?” Answer: “A week’s rehearsals” which might go some way to explaining Blue Note’s superior reputation for quality).

Bearing in mind that Thompson’s life wasn’t about to improve, perhaps we should listen to his ravishing soprano tone on his optimistic, lilting version of Kern and DeSylva’s 1919 song, ‘Look For The Silver Lining’.

After making some more albums for Prestige, wanderlust struck again in 1968 and he headed for Switzerland where he lived until 1970. Then back to the States in 1970 where, from ’73-74, he taught at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. After Dartmouth, he left the music business for ever.

During the late ’70s, his life took a steep downhill direction and by the ’80s, it was reported that he was a homeless hermit in Seattle, Washington. A victim of cruel Alzheimer’s’ disease, Lucky Thompson died in 2005.

This was the man who re-introduced the soprano saxophone to modern jazz, playing it like an angel before it occurred to John Coltrane to give it a try. Did he get the credit? Or the recognition?

No. He landed up homeless. And a hermit. With the dreaded Alzheimer’s.

Yet his nickname was ‘Lucky’?

As they might say across the pond, “go figure”.