Album of the Week, October 4, 2025
As jazz organ combos led by Jimmy Smith, Johnny Hammond and others notched record sales and hits, there were more and more young musicians who followed the format. Inevitably some of these played jazz and rock; one of these was Chester D. Thompson, a keyboard player from Oklahoma who started on piano at age 5 and is remembered today for his ten-year association with funk group Tower of Power and his 26-year-long tenure as a member of the Santana band (confusingly enough, sometimes alongside drummer Chester C. Thompson!). But he had plenty of sideman credits to his name in pop and jazz, appearing on tracks with Elton John, Freddie Hubbard, John Lee Hooker, Everlast, Eagle-Eye Cherry and others. And at the very beginning of his career, he cut this album, a straight-ahead jazz record in an unusual organ combo format.
Appearing alongside Thompson on this release are Raymond Pounds, a session drummer who performed with Blue Mitchell, Stevie Wonder (Songs in the Key of Life), Deniece Williams, Quincy Jones, Chaka Khan, Bob Dylan (Knocked Out Loaded) and others; this was his first recording. Tenor sax Rudolph Johnson had played with Jimmy McGriff (about whom more later) and Bill Cosby. And trombonist Al Hall, also making his debut, would have a career playing with Johnny Hammond, Freddie Hubbard, and other jazz-funk acts.
“Mr. T” starts out as a horn driven tune, with both Johnson and Hall blowing strong solos over Thompson’s organ. Thompson’s solo takes the tune into the blues, with increasingly elaborate improvisations over a steady organ bass line. Pounds takes a flourish on the drums at the end but otherwise is here as support.
“Trip One” alternates between two modes through the verse and shifts into a third on the chorus. The band takes a beat between verse and chorus, just enough for Johnson to wind up his sax into orbit. He’s not quite in “sheets of sound” territory here, but it’s a pretty great solo nevertheless, energizing the entire band and taking it through multiple tonalities. Hall’s trombone follows with a slightly more conventional approach, laying back into a more relaxed tone. It’s Johnson’s conception that Thompson follows for his solo, with chromatic runs that shift to different tonalities. The wrap up is slightly spoiled by uneven harmonies in the horns, putting an odd edge on an otherwise cool tune.
Speaking of Bill Cosby, the second side opens with “Weird Harold.” Cosby’s Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids television show was still a year away when this album was recorded, but Cosby had told stories about his childhood friends for years previously in his standup routines, and Old Weird Harold had debuted in “9th Street Bridge” on Cosby’s Revenge album in 1967. This track shares a little of the funky flavor that Herbie Hancock used for his own take on the Cosby kids in Fat Albert Rotunda, but with a considerably higher James Brown quotient. Pounds is the star on this track; listening to the way he used the cymbals on the two as emphasis, you can imagine his future work with Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones. Johnson’s sax is solidly bluesy and funky throughout, and Thompson’s fiery solo features flourishes and sustained notes that would make Jimmy Smith proud. Hall is confined to the chorus, where he again muffs the harmony parts but plays with great funkiness.
The band as a whole is tighter on “Powerhouse,” triggering off a fiercely funky Pounds drum part and a simmering low organ part. The horns wisely stay in unison and simple harmonies for the head to far greater effect. Johnson’s solo is tight but is only a setup for Thompson, who rips a set of stern modal runs and chords while staying close to the minor third throughout, all while keeping an incredibly tight bass line going in the lower range of the organ.
This was the only recording by the “Powerhouse” band, but Thompson didn’t sit still. By 1973 he had joined Tower of Power during that band’s commercial peak, staying with the band into the early 1980s before joining Carlos Santana’s group in 1983. He kept performing for a long time, turning up at the 2018 40th anniversary celebration of Tower of Power, but primarily stayed outside the organ combo format for rock and roll.
Another young player was about to radically redefine what an “organ combo” could sound like. We’ll hear his debut recording next week.
You can listen to this week’s album here:
BONUS: One of Thompson’s better known Tower of Power songs was “Squib Cakes” from the Back to Oakland album; here he is in a small combo playing the song in 2011.