Barbara Thompson

About Barbara Thompson

For over 40 years, she was a constant force in Jazz: top British saxophonist Barbara Thompson. She died on July 9, 2022, shortly before reaching the age of 78.

When she formed her band Paraphernalia in 1977, Barbara Thompson was quite the novelty: A woman entering the male dominated world of Jazz was considered a baffling exception. Thankfully, that sort of view has in the meantime become an exception itself (even though there STILL are some dinosaurs left who think it a compliment when they say "she played like a man"); and the amiable Englishwoman had long defined her position in the pantheon of modern Jazz beyond questions of gender anyway. Only few artists can look back onto a career of several decades and still inspire an audience as large to undiminished enthusiasm like Barbara Thompson did on a regular basis. This (and the ever growing number of her fan community) was most likely to be attributed to her enormous versatility, fueled by an undying creative curiosity which drove her across musical borders from the beginning of her professional career. Not only did she excel in the fields of Jazz and Rock (with her own band or with the 'Untied Jazz and Rock Ensemble), but also with ambitioned projects of 'classical' nature like e.g. her ''Concerto for Saxophone and Symphony Orchestra", her much-lauded Kurt Weill-interpretations (with the Medici String Quartet) or her adaptions of texts by the English poet Philipp Larkin under the headline ''Love Songs in Age''. Her work as an author of movie scores and her collaboration/s with soundtrack- and Musical-Mogul Andrew Lloyd Webber complete the picture of the alround musician Barbara Thompson. Which makes it palpable why she was assigned ''Member Of The British Empire'' in appreciation of her ''services to music'' by the Queen in 1995.