Record of the Week
Lucky Thompson - Tricotism (Impulse)
There’s something of a cruel joke in Lucky Thompson’s sobriquet. Over three decades as an active influential musician and only a smattering of sides as a leader to show for it. This set is commonly touted as his finest hour and features him in two fruitful formats, one conventional, the other far less so. The eight sides placing Thompson’s ethereal tenor in the streamlined company of guitarist Skeeter Best and bassist Oscar Pettiford border on the transcendental. Bop bled through with pigments of insouciant swing, the pieces float by with such ease and accessibility that beauty and complexity of the improvisations comprising them almost seems secondary. The collection’s other eight sides highlight Thompson’s talents with a frontline partner. He and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland are kindred improvisers in terms of tone and phrasing, their melodic derivations spooling out in gilded ribbons against a pair of rhythm sections anchored by the sturdy constant of Pettiford’s strings. Hawkins and Young are obvious antecedents, but Thompson is hardly bound by his elders, his tenor achieving a superlative merging of weightlessness and profundity. The Impulse version of the collection remains lucklessly out of print though the freebooters over at the Spanish Fresh Sound imprint have found fit to circulate their own version. Hard to fault such an action when the object of their mercenary ways is music of this optimal caliber.
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I like “tricotism”, mostly for the trio sides who remind the Jimmy Giuffre’s little combos of the time. And fuck Impulse (I mean the actual owner of the label) to have let this little gem in the limbo for the last fifteen years. The only CD edition of “Tricotism” was made under GRP/ MCA (remember the horrible logo “GRP presents The Legendary Masters Of Jazz”?)
By way of the verbiage, I would say Derek Taylor.
You’re not accusing me of verbosity, are you Cliff? If so, I’d have to plead the “Pot Calling the Kettle” defense ;)
I hear you on the Impulse ire, P.L.M., but as mentioned above the complete contents of Tricotism are currently available on Lucky Thompson Meets Oscar Pettiford through Fresh Sound.