Earma Thompson, 1923-2009: Pianist was a South Side classic
Musical career spanned more than half-century
By Howard Reich | Tribune critic
July 16, 2009
Chicago pianist Earma Thompson never really had a chance to become famous.
Emerging as a professional in the early 1940s, when few female instrumentalists attained stardom in the male-dominated world of jazz, she focused instead on honing her craft and raising her family.
But in a career spanning more than half a century -- most of it spent on the South Side -- she stood as a significant figure in the city's musical culture.
"She was rare in this field, a really historic figure," said Barry Dolins, deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Special Events, which produces the city's music festivals.
"She was there practically at the founding of modern jazz piano in Chicago, her and Lil Hardin," said Dolins, referring to a more celebrated pianist. Hardin was married to Louis Armstrong and was pivotal to his success in Chicago in the 1920s.
Mrs. Thompson, 86, died of heart failure Tuesday, July 14, in South Shore Hospital, said her son, Terrance.
Mrs. Thompson "was a great jazz player and a great blues player," said Dolins' brother Steven, who recorded Thompson's late-in-life CDs "Madam Queen" (2007) and "Just in Time" (2004) on The Sirens Records.
"Her playing was 'in the gutter,' " said Steven Dolins, citing the down-home earthiness of Mrs. Thompson's work, "but yet she had a way of playing beautiful chords."
In a Tribune interview in 1999, Mrs. Thompson said: "I started playing jazz late, even though I studied piano early on, but my father was a minister, and my parents didn't go for that jazz."
"But I was lucky enough to go to DuSable High School, where they had Capt. Walter Dyett teaching everyone, like Johnny Hartman, Gene Ammons, Dorothy Donegan -- all the stars went to DuSable.
"But I still never planned to play jazz for a living or anything. In fact, my mother said to me, 'Take typing.' "
Mrs. Thompson graduated from DuSable in 1939 and was determined to build on what she had learned musically there and in church. She studied classical piano at Herzl Junior College on the West Side and at the Chicago College of Music in the Loop.
After marrying jazz drummer and dancer Marshall Thompson, she started to develop a jazz career, working with no less than singers Joe Williams and Billie Holiday at the Cotton Club on the South Side.
Holiday asked Mrs. Thompson to go on tour with her, but the pianist declined, citing her family commitments and the objections of her husband.
"He knew what goes on out on the road, especially against women," her son said. "Women had a hard time. It would be different if Dad could have been her manager -- you needed certain kinds of protection out there."
Yet what Mrs. Thompson missed in fame she won in the affection Chicago audiences held for her.
"Like Holiday, Thompson is able to make the most popular tunes sound personal, without bringing too much attention to herself," Aaron Cohen wrote in a Tribune review in 1995, noting the characteristically self-effacing nature of Mrs. Thompson's work.
In addition to her son, Mrs. Thompson is survived by a nephew, Marshall Thompson, and a granddaughter.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. July 25 in Gatling's Chapel, 10133 S. Halsted St., Chicago.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...,2171245.story
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