The elegantly nicknamed
Sir Charles Thompson was one of the few musicians associated with swing who was able to make a graceful, wholehearted transition to bop at the time the revolution was happening. His piano style is light-fingered and spare in a witty, inventive,
Basie-descended bop manner, and he was able to adapt it effectively to the organ.
Thompson's first instrument was the violin, but the piano beckoned when he was a teenager, and he started working with territory bands in the midwest in the late 1930s. He briefly joined
Lionel Hampton in 1940, but left in order to work with small groups and contribute arrangements to
Basie, Hampton,
Fletcher Henderson,
Jimmy Dorsey, and other bands. While working in New York's 52nd St. clubs during World War II, he began to pick up on the beginnings of bop. In 1944-1945,
Thompson played in the
Coleman Hawkins/
Howard McGhee band, journeying to Hollywood with them to record several terrific swing/bop sides for Capitol (now on Hollywood Stampede) and also his lively tune "Ladies' Lullaby" for Asch. So thoroughly had
Thompson absorbed the language and ethos of bop that he was able to write one of the quintessential classics of the idiom, "Robbins' Nest," which became a hit for
Sir Charles' next employer,
Illinois Jacquet, and inspired a haunting, pathbreaking
Gil Evans arrangement for
Claude Thornhill in 1947.
Thompson recorded a number of small group albums for Vanguard in the '50s, and two more for
Columbia in 1959 and 1960, and appeared as a sideman for
Buck Clayton and
Jimmy Rushing, but spent much of the '50s freelancing as an organist. He toured the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico in the '60s leading small groups, as well as Europe with
Clayton. Following a bout of ill health, he returned to action in 1975. His early bop sides for Apollo, including some with
Hawkins and
Charlie Parker, are available on the Delmark reissue
Takin' Off. ~ Richard S. Ginell