Barbara Thompson (musician)

Barbara Thompson (musician)

Barbara Gracey Thompson MBE (born 27 July 1944, Oxford) is an English jazz saxophonist, flautist and composer. She studied clarinet, flute, piano and classical composition at the Royal College of Music, but the music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane made her shift her interests to jazz and saxophone. Since 1967, she has been married to drummer Jon Hiseman of Colosseum.

Around 1970, she was part of Neil Ardley's New Jazz Orchestra and appeared on albums by Colosseum. Starting in 1975, she was involved in the foundation of three bands:

• the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, a 'band of bandleaders' with Wolfgang Dauner (p), Volker Kriegel (g), Albert Mangelsdorff (tb), Eberhard Weber (b), Ian Carr (tp), Charlie Mariano (sax), Ack van Rooyen (tp) and Jon Hiseman (dr).
• Barbara Thompson’s Jubiaba (9 piece Latin/Rock band) including Peter Lemer, Roy Babbington, Henry Lowther, Ian Hamer, Derek Wadsworth, Trevor Tomkins, Bill Le Sage, Glyn Thomas.
• Barbara Thompson’s Paraphernalia, her current working band with Peter Lemer (p), Billy Thompson (v), Dave Ball (b) and Jon Hiseman on drums.

She was awarded the MBE in 1996 for services to music. Due to Parkinson's disease diagnosed in 1997, she retired as an active saxophonist in 2001 with a farewell tour. After a period of working as a composer exclusively, she returned to stage in 2004 to replace the unwell Dick Heckstall-Smith during Colosseum's "Tomorrow's Blues" tour, and in 2005 she performed live with Paraphernalia in their "Never Say Goodbye" tour. Since 2004 she has been a permanent member of Colosseum.

She cooperated closely with Andrew Lloyd-Webber for musicals like Cats and Starlight Express and his requiem. She wrote several classical compositions, music for movies and TV, a musical of her own and songs for the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, Barbara Thompson’s Paraphernalia and her big band Moving Parts.

Her playing, if not her name, will be familiar to a wider audience, from her playing the incidental music in the popular ITV police series A Touch of Frost starring David Jason. She also played flute on Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.