Trumpeter Malachi Thompson, who emerged from the AACM scene in Chicago to play with Sam Rivers, Jackie McLean, and Archie Shepp in New York, is one of those gifted jazz artists who never seem to get the breaks and recognition they deserve. Thompson lived in D.C. for several years before a bout with cancer sent him home to Chicago in 1989. He wrestled the disease into remission and gathered together some of his favorite musicians, including Washington saxophonist Carter Jefferson and Chicago pianist Kirk Brown, to record a new album, The Jaz Life. The recording demonstrates that Thompson hasn't lost his knack for composing and arranging. He wrote tributes to John Coltrane and Miles Davis that don't ape their sound so much as express Thompson's passionate response to their music. He pays tribute to his days in Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy by arranging a freewheeling jazz treatment of Ray Charles's R&B standard, "Drown in My Own Tears." Thompson's arrangement lends new harmonic scope to the Rodgers & Hart chestnut, "My Romance." Unfortunately, his illness has apparently undermined Thompson's once robust tone on the trumpet as well as his sure sense of pitch. A much better example of the trumpeter in his prime is his brilliant previous album, Spirit, which was recorded in the mid-'80s and released in 1990. --Geoffrey Himes
The Jaz Life,Malachi Thompson,Delmark,Avant-Garde,Avant-Garde Jazz,Jazz,Jazz Music,Pop
Jazz Music:
- Tribute to Don Cherry
- Unsafe Sax
- Voices in Rhythm
- Wanderin': Swing and Sway With Sammy Kaye
- Whipped Cream & Other Delights [Import] [Limited Edition]
- With Anthony Davis
- 1950-1951
- 1958-1974 [Import]
- Again
- Ahmad Jamal/Gary Burton in Concert
Jazz Music
Waves: the Very Best of [Original recording remastered] [Import]
Heinrich von Herzogenberg: Piano Quartet, Op. 75 / String Trio, Op. 27/1
Kissing the Sun [CD-single] [Import]
Motown Chartbusters, Vols. 7-12 [Box set] [Import]
Genuine Tong Funeral [Import] [Limited Edition] [Original recording remastered]