Pianist and singer Jo Thompson will debut “Slender, Tender and Tall: An Evening with the Fabulous Ms. Jo Thompson,” at the famed Cafe Carlyle on Thursday, March 21. Thompson, a timeless, knock-out beauty of 80-plus years, plays piano and vamps, purrs and romps her way through jazz and standards from the 1930s through the present, along with her own original material. She has been critically lauded by Jazz Times, the New York Times, All About Jazz, Variety, Time Out New York, All Music Guide, the Detroit Free Press, the New York Post, the New York Daily News and many others. As a Bistro Award Winner (Outstanding Instrumentalist/Vocalist), she shares the company of luminaries such as Eartha Kitt, Rosemary Clooney and her friend, Bobby Short, with whom she appeared in a sold-out concert at the Detroit Opera House in 2001.
“Slender, Tender and Tall: An Evening with the Fabulous Ms. Jo Thompson” will run March 21 to March 23, with repeats on March 28 and March 30. Showtime is at 10:45 p.m.Cover charges are $25 and $30, with a $25 minimum charge for food and beverages. Thompson will appear at Cafe Carlyle with bassist Calvin Hill and drummer Mike Campenni.
Thompson is one of a handful of working performers with firsthand memories of engagements at Sans Souci in pre-Castro Havana, Cafe Society in New York, the Stork Room in London and many other glamorous and historic post-swing venues from Beverly Hills to Paris. Her press kit is packed with articles and reviews from the present dating back to the 1950s, when legendary journalist Walter Winchell published her first major New York review in his influential column. Thompson’s first album, “Slender, Tender and Tall,” was recorded and released in 2002. It prompted the following quote from Christopher Loudon in Jazz Times: “She’s still, as Cole Porter so succinctly put it, ‘got that thing.’” In 2010, she followed it up with “Jo Thompson Forever Fabulous,” released on JazzJewels Digital with the J.C. Heard Orchestra under the direction of Walt Szymanski.
Others have praised her as “A piano-playing Lena Horne, a singing Hazel Scott and all the good qualities of Bobby Short rolled into one package” (Detroit Free Press) and as “a stick of human dynamite … If you don’t get to her show, you’ll be missing out on the liveliest, lustiest hour in town” (Time Out New York).
In 2010, she toured with a tribute show to Lena Horne, who befriended Thompson when both young women were booked at Jack Goldman’s Clover Club in Miami in 1953. “Thank You Lena” was conceived by Thompson’s manager, journalist Greg Dunmore. Thompson acknowledges Horne’s combination of sass and sophistication as influential on her own development.
