Coming to Rudy's
Vance Thompson’s New Voice
For most musicians, losing the ability to play their instrument would be unthinkable. For Grammy-nominated trumpeter, composer, educator, and bandleader Vance Thompson, it became reality.
When Thompson appears at Rudy’s Jazz Room on Friday, June 26, Nashville audiences will encounter an artist whose latest chapter is defined not by loss, but by reinvention. Best known as the founder and longtime music director of the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra, Thompson has spent decades building a reputation as one of Tennessee’s most respected jazz figures. Yet the music he brings to Rudy’s emerges from one of the most challenging periods of his life.
In late 2017, Thompson began experiencing symptoms of focal dystonia, a neurological disorder that affects muscle control and coordination. For brass players, the condition can be devastating, disrupting the highly specialized muscle movements required to perform. Over the next several years, Thompson pursued treatments and therapies while continuing to perform and teach. By 2022, however, he had come to a difficult conclusion: his career as a trumpet player had effectively come to an end.
“It had become increasingly obvious that no amount of practice or physical therapy would overcome the impairments,” Thompson recalled in materials accompanying his latest recording, Lost and Found.
For an artist whose identity had long been intertwined with the trumpet, the loss was profound. “Being a trumpeter was a big part of my identity by the time I was in my early teens, and as I started to build a career around it, that feeling only grew,” Thompson says. “I started to equate my self-worth to the quality of my performances, which can become an emotional roller coaster and deeply unhealthy. When I lost the ability to play in 2017, it was devastating.”
Yet even as performing became impossible, music remained central to his life. Thompson continued teaching at the University of Tennessee and leading the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra. Those roles were complicated, he says. “Staying engaged in those activities was painful because they reminded me of what I’d lost. But they were also therapeutic in that I was surrounded by people who still saw me as a musician. That allowed me to see it myself.”
Over time, he realized that his musical voice had not disappeared. “I could still hear the melodies very clearly that I wanted to play,” he explains. “I just no longer had the means to get them out into the world. So, I started to wonder if a fresh start on a totally different type of instrument might be a viable path forward.”
That path led unexpectedly to the vibraphone.
A longtime admirer of vibraphone masters such as Gary Burton, Stefon Harris, and Milt Jackson, Thompson saw the instrument as both a challenge and an opportunity. While the mechanics of performance were entirely different, he believed his instincts as an improviser and composer might transfer. What began as an experiment quickly evolved into something much more substantial.
Only weeks after borrowing a pair of mallets, Thompson was already calling friends together for informal jam sessions. Soon he was developing a personal voice on the instrument that surprised even him.
“It didn’t take too long before I sounded like myself,” he has said.
That familiarity came with unexpected freedoms. While he acknowledges missing some of the trumpet’s expressive possibilities—”bending notes, shading notes, crescendos and decrescendos on a sustained note”—he says the vibraphone has opened creative doors that outweigh those losses.
“The freedom that I feel playing the vibes outweighs those things by a lot,” Thompson says. “The fact that the vibraphone makes such a wonderful sound on its own makes improvising feel much more low stakes. The trumpet is a physically taxing and physically demanding instrument to play in a way that the vibraphone just isn’t.”
After decades of worrying about endurance and physical limitations, he says, “it’s very liberating to play an instrument that doesn’t come with that same sort of baggage.”
That change in perspective has also transformed his relationship with practice. “There’s not much comparison between my obsessive-compulsive practice habits on the trumpet versus my approach to practicing the vibraphone,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve learned to be easier on myself. My practice sessions on vibes are fun, and if I’m not having fun, I know it’s time to take a break.”
The results can be heard on Lost and Found, Thompson’s first album as a leader in more than a decade and his debut recording as a vibraphonist. Released earlier this year on Moondo Records, the album serves as both a personal statement and a testament to artistic resilience.
Backed by a quartet of longtime collaborators—pianist Taber Gable, guitarist Steve Kovalcheck, bassist Tommy Sauter, and drummer Marcus Finnie—Thompson presents a collection of original compositions that balance lyricism, swing, and emotional depth.
The title track carries particular significance. Thompson began writing “Lost and Found” shortly before the onset of his dystonia but left it unfinished during years of uncertainty. Returning to the composition as a vibraphonist, he completed a work that mirrors his own journey, moving from introspection toward confidence and renewal.
Elsewhere, inspiration arrives from a variety of sources. “The Thread of All Sorrows” draws its title from a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, while “Mixed Feelings” reflects on the emotional complexity of a daughter’s wedding. A dedication to family appears in “The Ladies at Rose Cottage,” and a playful sense of humor emerges in “Sleight of Hand,” inspired by an inside joke with his wife.
The project also includes inventive interpretations of familiar material, from Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow” to Chick Corea’s “Bud Powell,” along with a contribution from former Art Blakey Jazz Messenger Donald Brown.
Stepping onto a stage again as a performer after decades of recognition as a trumpeter required its own adjustment. Thompson chose to meet the challenge head-on.
“The first time that I played vibes on a Knoxville Jazz Orchestra concert—a group that I founded and performed with as a trumpeter for 18 years before having to stop—I introduced myself as ‘the world’s oldest beginner vibraphonist,'” he recalls. “It got a laugh and helped dispel some of the nerves.”
Today, his priorities are markedly different from those that guided much of his earlier career. “I often remind myself that the reason I’m doing this is to reconnect with the joy of making music with other people,” he says. “I’m not trying to prove my worth to myself anymore. That makes everything easier.”
That spirit of transformation has resonated throughout the jazz community. Thompson’s accomplishments already include a Grammy-nominated performance with the Jerry Douglas Band, arranging work for the Grammy-winning Count Basie Orchestra recording Basie Swings the Blues, and more than twenty-five years as a jazz educator at the University of Tennessee.
For audiences at Rudy’s Jazz Room, the performance offers more than an opportunity to hear a celebrated musician. It is a chance to witness an artist who refused to allow circumstance to define the limits of his creativity.
“The band that I’m performing with at Rudy’s is an absolute dream team,” Thompson says. “Every single player is a high-caliber virtuoso who is in demand around the world.”
The group will perform music from Lost and Found, but Thompson says the live setting brings a different energy than the studio. “The energy that they bring to the live performance setting simply can’t be captured in the studio,” he says. “People can expect an energetic set of music that expresses a wide range of feelings and emotions. They can also expect to have a great time.”
When he takes the stage on June 26, Vance Thompson will not be returning to music. He never truly left it. Instead, he arrives having discovered a new voice—one forged through perseverance, self-discovery, and an enduring commitment to artistic expression.
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Another contribution from one of our hugely talented minions!
That’s an incredibly moving story. It really highlights the deep connection musicians have with their instruments, and how much more it is than just playing.