Chris Thompson
I was born in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1958 and grew up in Kansas, Florida and Connecticut. I have lived in New York City since 1980. I first remember getting turned on by the sound of the trumpet when my father took me to see Herb Alpert in Kansas City. I was eight years old. When I was 16 I heard Herbie Hancock's recording of "Maiden Voyage", with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet. That really blew me away. I started practicing, taking private trumpet lessons and going to local jam sessions. I also discovered Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw and other great jazz trumpet players. I studied jazz theory with Linc Chamberland in Norwalk, Connecticut and attended Berklee College of Music in Boston for a year. In 1980 I enrolled at the City College of New York, where I got my B.F.A. in Music and studied trumpet privately with Vince Penzarella (New York Philharmonic). I began playing latin music while attending CCNY and have since shared the stage with many of the great singers in Salsa music including Tony Vega, Lalo Rodriguez, Adalberto Santiago, Cano Estremera, Hector Tricoche, Jose Alberto and Tito Gomez. I've performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Festival Latinoamericando in Milan Italy and throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia with various latin, jazz, pop and Broadway show productions, including the hit show "Chicago".
I released my debut CD "Red Morning Rise" in 2005. I hope you check it out. You can find it on cdbaby.com, amazon.com and iTunes.
My equipment: a Bach Stradivarius Model 43 ML (1982); a Yamaha YTR-8310Z (2004), a Bach Stradivarius Model 25 L (1972) cornet; and an Olds L12 flugelhorn (1975). I play GR 65 series trumpet mouthpieces, a Laskey 60DB cornet mouthpiece and a Bach 7Cfl flugelhorn mouthpiece.