MONTCLAIR, NJ — The Montclair Art Museum’s fourth annual “Art Meets Jazz” performance may have had to go virtual this year, but the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t stop the show from going on. Isaiah J. Thompson took the online stage to perform on March 11, playing some of his own original music and standards that audience members will know. The musician, who played the piano during the show, performed alongside the other members of his trio, bassist Philip Norris and drummer TJ Reddick.
“A lot of people talk about the different energy,” the West Orange native said in a phone interview with the West Orange Chronicle on March 5 about virtual pandemic performances. “But I think it’s important to play for the people who are in the room. I’m playing for the other people in the band, as well.”
A graduate of Juilliard, Thompson became interested in jazz at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Jazz for Teens program and Jazz House Kids in Montclair. He learned about the improvisation-heavy style of music and discovered artists that most people might not have even heard of, such as Randy Weston, Cedar Walton and Phin Newborn Jr.
“I don’t think they’re heard enough,” Thompson said, adding that there are other popular artists who have had an impact on him. “Stevie Wonder has had a huge influence on me.”
Thompson writes his own music, some of which will be played on Thursday night. When he’s thinking about where to start with a new composition, he said, the people who will be playing it with him are at the front of his mind.
“I think you should write for people,” Thompson said. “You want them to like that they’re playing, and you have to like it yourself. You have to imagine who will be on those instruments. It will influence how it sounds in the room. I’m deeply invested in the personalization.”
Thompson specializes on the piano, but he doesn’t label himself as a pianist — he enjoys the freedom that comes with playing jazz.
“When I hear I’m a pianist I cringe a little, because I don’t think of myself that way,” he said. “I so identify with where it comes from and the black experience it illustrates. There’s so much freedom in it, but there’s a lot of communication also.”
New Orleans might be, as Thompson calls it, the “mecca” of jazz music, but Thompson finds New York City to be another heavyweight jazz city, having grown up in North Jersey and moved to New York City for college. In New York, he spent his days in class with other musicians and his nights performing late sets after watching more established musicians play. He also spent a lot of time at Lincoln Center and won the 2018 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.
“New York has an iconic vibe about the city,” Thompson said. “There’s always the idea that you have to go at some point.”
Thompson has performed virtually a few times in the last year but is looking forward to clubs reopening, so he can be in front of a crowd again.
“When we do get together there’s going to be this intensity, because people are going to be excited to be together,” he said.
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