Lucky Thompson Octet live at NDR Hamburg 1961

Lucky Thompson, ts
Nat Peck, tb
Jo Hrasko, as
William Boucaya, bs
Christian Bellest, tp
Carlos Charlie Diernhammer, p
Peter Trunk, b
Daniel Humair, dr

recorded live at NDR Studio 10, Hamburg, April 28, 1961

1. Mr. Care Free
2. It's A Fantasy
3. Old Reliable
4. I Remember When
5. Check Out Time

Eli "Lucky" Thompson (June 16, 1924, Columbia, South Carolina — July 30, 2005, Seattle, Washington) was a United States jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist. While John Coltrane usually receives the most credit for bringing the soprano saxophone out of obsolescence in the early 60s, Lucky Thompson, along with Steve Lacy, played it in a more advanced bebop format.
After playing with the swing orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Don Redman, Billy Eckstine, Lucky Millinder, and Count Basie, he worked in rhythm and blues and then established a career in bop and hard bop, working with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Jackson. Thompson was an inspired soloist capable of a very personal style in which the tradition of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Don Byas was intelligently mixed with a modern grasp of harmony. He showed these capabilities as sideman on many albums recorded during the mid-1950s, such as Stan Kenton's Cuban Fire, and those under his own name. He appeared on Charlie Parker's Los Angeles Dial Records sessions and on Miles Davis’s hard bop Walkin' session. Thompson recorded albums as leader for ABC Paramount and Prestige and as a sideman on records for Savoy Records with Milt Jackson as leader.
He lived in Lausanne, Switzerland in the late 1960s and recorded several albums there including "Lord, Lord, Am I Ever Gonna Know?", released more than 30 years after the original recording session in 1962 on Candid records.