The death has been announced of trumpeter Eddie ‘Tan Tan’ Thornton who played in Brixton with many of the musicians who have made it such a centre for jazz and reggae.
Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, in 1931, in 1960s London he played on hits including the Beatles’ Got to Get You into My Life and with Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames, as well as with famed trombonist Rico, and Boney M.
In the 1980s he played with Aswad and on his solo album, TanTan: Musical nostalgia for today, backed by The Cimarons.
In Brixton, he played at the famed Mambo Inn at the Loughborough Hotel and Mambista at West Norwood’s Portico, and with Jamaica Jazz, who still perform at the Effra Hall Tavern.
Eddie Thornton died in London on 10 December at the age of 94.
He was educated at the Alpha Boys’ School, an orphanage, in Kingston, Jamaica, founded in 1880 by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy, and famous for the many successful musicians who were part of its music programme and the Alpha Boys’ Band.
