Vern Thompson
was born in Oakland, California on July 29th 1950. He was raised in Berkeley,
CA, attending Berkeley High School and graduating in the spring of 1968.
Much later Berkeley High would produce musicians Benny Green, David Murray,
Joshua Redmon and Peter Apfelbaum.
"At the
time I attended Berkeley High there was very little recognition of jazz
in the curriculum , there was only a jazz appreciation course and no jazz
band."
In March of
1969 Vern went to work at KJAZ-FM off and on for the next twelve years
using the air name Lee Thomas. He also attended San Francisco State University
where he studied Broadcast Communications and music. During this time he
began private study of the trumpet, starting with John Coppola and continuing
to study with Warren Gale Jr., Eddie Henderson, Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson
(studying with each for about two years).
"After
I received my B.A. from San Francisco State I just continued to study trumpet
and kept going with music. I wanted to be a professional musician. I wanted
to be one of the best so I studied with those I (and those in the know)
considered to be the best. "
However he
would much later have to discontinue playing the trumpet because of an
ailment called Focal Dystonia, a nerve and muscle disorder that causes
a cramping and locking of the fingers. "This pretty much destroyed
my technique... all the practicing five and six hours a day went down the
tubes. But what I learned about improvisational theory, I was able to use
in composition".
At this point
he began to write more in order to stay with the music. "Since all
I want to do in this music revolves around improvisation, when I write,
I write for the improviser. I am specifically interested in writing music
to expand the jazz repertoire. This music is, and always has been, about
improvisation and no one who really innovated in the area of improvisation
did so within a big band or a very large group. This music is about compactness.
I feel that I can say all that I want to say with ten or less instruments."
Read an insightful
essay written by Vern, 
