Donald Winston Thompson, OC (born 18 January 1940) is a Canadian jazz musician who plays double bass, piano, and vibes. Thompson's career as a performer, recording artist, producer, session musician, and music educator has lasted for more than 50 years.
Thompson has been a fixture on the Toronto jazz scene since the late 1960s when he moved there from British Columbia. As a backing musician in studio and live performance, Thompson has appeared on more than 200 records, including releases by George Shearing, Buddy Tate, Jay McShann, Junior Mance, John Handy, Ed Bickert, John Abercrombie, Moe Koffman, Anne Murray, Mel Tormé, Ruby Braff and Lenny Breau.
He lived in Vancouver from 1960 to 1965, working as a freelance musician primarily on bass. He has appeared with jazz troupes led by Vancouver musicians such as Dave Robbins, Chris Gage and Fraser MacPherson, as well as leading his own musical groups. In addition to appearing regularly on CBC radio, he was also on television as a featured artist. From 1965 to 1966, Thompson worked with saxophonist John Handy, who was based in San Francisco, and he appeared with Handy at the 1965 Monterey Jazz Festival, a performance which was recorded and released on Columbia Records.
He returned to Canada in 1967 and has been a resident of Toronto since 1969. In that year he joined Rob McConnell's Boss Brass as a percussionist, switching to bass in 1971 and later to piano (1987–1993). He was also a member of Moe Koffman's group from 1970 to 1979 as pianist or bassist, contributing arrangements and compositions and working as co-producer with Koffman on two albums, Museum Pieces and Looking Up. He also worked extensively with guitarists Ed Bickert, Lenny Breau and Sonny Greenwich (whom he'd played with in the John Handy Quintet in the mid-60's) while keeping busy with his own various projects. Here he is soloing with Ed Bickert and Claude Ranger:
Thompson was, along with Ed Bickert and drummers Terry Clarke and Jerry Fuller, a member of the "house rhythm section" at Toronto's Bourbon Street Jazz Club. There he worked with Paul Desmond, Jim Hall, Milt Jackson, Art Farmer, James Moody, Zoot Sims, Clark Terry, Harry Edison, Frank Rosolino, Slide Hampton, Lee Konitz and Abbey Lincoln. Thompson appeared at other venues with Sarah Vaughan, Red Rodney, Joe Henderson, Dewey Redman, Red Mitchell, Sheila Jordan and Kenny Wheeler. Thompson also served as a recording engineer for several of the Bourbon Street performances, including the 1975 Paul Desmond performances that resulted in the albums Live and Paul Desmond, plus a box set released in 2020. Thompson's 1975 recordings of Jim Hall's trio (featuring himself and Terry Clarke) at Bourbon Street resulted in the album Jim Hall Live! and a later box set of the same performances. Likewise, Rosolino's "Thinking About You" album was also taken from performances Thompson recorded live at Bourbon Street, where he, Bickert and drummer Terry Clarke were backing the trombonist. Recordings Thompson made of the Thompson/Bickert/Clarke rhythm section at George's Spaghetti House, another Toronto club, resulted in Ed Bickert, the guitarist's 1976 debut album.
Thompson became a member of guitarist Jim Hall's trio in 1974, and performed and recorded with Hall in Europe, Japan, the United States and Canada until the early 1980s. In 1982 he joined pianist George Shearing and stayed for a five-year period during which he appeared at many major jazz clubs and festivals in the United States, Great Britain, and Brazil.
In 1996 he was artist in residence at the Royal Academy of Music, London, England, and performed in a concert of all-Canadian music with fellow Canadians Kenny Wheeler and Hugh Fraser. He taught regularly at the Banff Centre for the Performing Arts along with other major international musicians.
