Radar Report
Mark Anthony Thompson is a multi-instrumentalist- composer who recorded two solo albums in the eighties, and a stunning trilogy of albums under the moniker of Chocolate Genius: Black Music (1998) Godmusic (2001) and now the splendidly multi-chromatic Black Yankee Rock, which is produced by Craig Street. His music fuses warm R&B, soulful jazz, and beautifully lyrical ballads, and features the inspired musicianship of such stellar musicians as Van Dyke Parks, Marc Ribot, Me'Shell NdegeOcello, Abe Laboriel Jr., Toshi Reagon and many others. Thompson has also written commercial jingles, and composed the scores for the films Urbania and Everyday People, as well as the theatrical production, A Huey P. Newton Story, which won two 1997 Obie Awards, and which was made into a PBS movie directed by Spike Lee.
Born in Panama, Thompson moved to South Central L.A. as a kid, where he was influenced by a wide array of musicians and songwriters, including Small Faces, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Marvin Gaye and Kris Kristofferson. "I liked all the people who were saying something," he said during a recent interview in Los Angeles. "I liked storytellers." The first instrument he played was flute, and then he switched to sax "because it was louder. I thought I'd be a jazz musician, but then I heard Charlie Parker, and I knew I'd never be like that, so I started writing my own music."
He visited New York in 1992 and ended up moving there. "I don't think living in New York changed my music," he said, "because I think your music always stays the same, once you find your voice. But New York opened me up in a lot of ways because New York is a much easier place to play live than L.A. There are so many more venues there, and so many more people who want to play there for the love of it. New York kicks your ass; you get on the train, and there are amazing players sitting right next to you."
When he first came to New York, he did some recording sessions, and met the unique guitarist Marc Ribot, who is famous for his wonderfully eclectic playing on Tom Waits' records. "Marc is a great guy, a good friend," said Thompson. "He's one of the reasons I moved to New York. I first heard him playing on his solo records, and I heard him play with Waits, and his sound is unmistakable." Thompson produced two records for Ribot, and they played together in a band called Crackers.
These days Thompson revels in making his own albums as well as bringing his music to movies. "Working on Everyday People was a great experience for me," he said. "It was really organic, and all the music seems in the right place. I like scoring a lot. It's a lot different than writing lyrics. Sometimes it can almost be mathematical. You're looking at cues and you have a certain amount of seconds, and frames to match. It's a much different art than writing songs." Working on A Huey P. Newton Story was also a rewarding experience for him, because it was live theater, and afforded him the opportunity to perform new music every night. He toured with the show around the world, from New York to San Francisco, with stints in London and Belgium. "It was fun," he remembered. "I didn't have a band – I did it alone, manipulating a bunch of multi-tracks and samplers, and played saxophone." For the movie score, he cemented the best of these musical elements, and brought in friends such as Ribot and Branford Marsalis to flesh out the soundtrack.
Presently he's on a world tour playing songs from Black Yankee Rock and his other albums. He also recently completed the score for a Showtime documentary called Riker's High which follows eighteen months in the lives of three incarcerated kids who attend a high school within Riker's Island.
Asked to define his musical mission, he answered, "To do something unique to myself. Art is an effort to gather your tribe. Hopefully, mine will come with me."
— Paul Zollo
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The music of Mark Anthony Thompson, aka CHOCOLATE GENIUS,
moves effortlessly from stage to screen to a great new solo album
