{"id":224,"date":"2009-07-26T18:11:40","date_gmt":"2009-07-26T22:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2009\/07\/earma_thompson_unheralded_pian\/"},"modified":"2011-04-28T16:33:43","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T20:33:43","slug":"earma_thompson_unheralded_pian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/07\/earma_thompson_unheralded_pian.html","title":{"rendered":"Earma Thompson, unheralded piano jazz star, dies at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Chicago<\/span> mainstay, whose efforts supported local and touring musicians starting in the early ’40s but who didn’t record under her own name until 2004, Earma Thompson <\/span>deserves to be celebrated as an outstanding example of how women have participated in jazz often more than is acknowledged, from behind the scenes. As the Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich<\/span> wrote in his July 16\u00c2\u00a0obituary<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0of this significant pianist and salon — not<\/span> saloon — keeper, “Earma Thompson never really had a chance to become famous.”<\/div>\n
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\"Earma<\/div>\n
www,JazzChicago.net\/jazzfest.html<\/div>\n


\nThompson’s death was brought to my attention by her friend and record producer Steven Dolins<\/span>, whose small independent label The Sirens<\/a> comprises just over a dozen Chicago-identified jazz, blues and gospel piano albums (Dolins’ own appreciation of Earma is here<\/a>). Dolins had been introduced to Thompson by our mutual pal blues ‘n’ boogie pianist Erwin Helfer<\/span>, but she had long been a local institution.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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A graduate of jazz-renowned DuSable High Schoo<\/a>l<\/span>, which she attended at the same time as \u00c2\u00a0as singer Johnny Hartman,<\/span> pianist Dorothy Donegan<\/span> and tenor sax mainstay of Sun Ra’s Arkestra John Gilmore<\/span>, Earma was initially a choir singer and classical and church pianist, introduced to jazz by drummer Marshall Thompson<\/span>, mainstay at the posh London House and later the Playboy Club, to whom she was married for more than 50 years. The couple served as a social hub of the Chicago scene, being friends with Ahmad Jamal, Eddie Harris, Oscar Brown Jr.<\/span> and the like, as well as owners of a Side South three-flat which was often the scene of jam sessions and rehearsals, and in which bassist Rufus Reid<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0long occupied the second floor.<\/div>\n
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Earma, whose style easily bridges any distinctions between blues, swing and beboppish modernism, backed up singers Joe Williams<\/span> and Billie Holiday<\/span> — who wanted to hire her to tour, but the pianist wouldn’t leave home, her husband and their son Terrance<\/span> (they were neighbors of Michelle Obama<\/span> when the First Lady was growing up; Terry, a drummer like his dad, played at the Obama’s wedding reception). There is also a nephew named Marshall Thompson, leader of the R&B Hall of Famers the Chi-Lites.<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Though she worked professionally in the ’50s and thereafter, Earma was rarely lured into the spotlight, but not because of a lack of talent or skill. Her piano touch is traditional in most senses, her ideas based in the urbane blues idiom and turn quirky during solos, typically sporting a lovely lilt.<\/div>\n
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“She was extremely humble, articulate, intelligent, elegant and had a fiesty side,” Dolins reports. “She’d roll her eyes at musicians who didn’t know the chord changes.” He says it took him a year to persuade her to record Just In Time<\/a><\/span> in 2004 with bassist John Whitfield, <\/span>but that after he went with her on a trip to New York City where she performed on Marian McPartland’<\/span>s NPR program Piano Jazz<\/a> Earma and he became really close. Saxophonists John Brumbach<\/span> and Ari Brown<\/span>, plus bass and drums are in the lineup on Madam Queen<\/a>, <\/span>Earma’s second cd for The Sirens, from 2007. “She was a great blues player and could really swing, too,” Dolins says with palpable sadness. “I used to talk to her every day.”<\/div>\n
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It takes women like Earma Thompson as well as men like her husband Marshall — credited on some 40 albums from 1958 through 2004, though never recorded as a leader — to create and sustain both the art and community of jazz.<\/div>\n
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