Thompsom plays his final note
Elliott Thompson on the trombone. He played in every one of the 26
years of Mammoth’s original Jazz Festival.
“Grandfather” of Mammoth Jazz dies peacefully at 85
The singer Yves Evans described Elliott Thompson the best. She said, “Elliott made mortality seem easy, as if it weren’t a burden … he was a spiritual being having a human experience.”
Thompson, who recently moved to Bullhead City, Arizona after nearly fifty years in Mammoth, died peacefully in his daughter Sharon’s arms on Tuesday. He was 85.
His son Gary and daughter-in-law had just spent the previous week with him and had flown back from Arizona that morning.
As recently as Sunday evening, Elliott had been out on the town, enjoying an enchilada and a glass of wine with family at a local Mexican restaurant.
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