JAZZ REVIEW : TOMPKINS SCORES IN FIRST PIANO SOLO

Ross Tompkins has been heard in so many local groups playing such a variety of good, bad and indifferent keyboards that the only thing left unaccomplished was a solo outing on a first-rate piano. The Hyatt on Sunset obliged him with just such an opportunity for two nights on a splendid instrument, newly installed in the Silver Screen Jazz Room.

Playing alone has obvious advantages for the well-equipped pianist. He is his own man; he can add a few bars here and there, go in an out of tempo, change the harmony when the mood takes him, insert interludes between choruses, without having to worry about whether a bass player and drummer can follow him.

Tompkins not only has the technique and imagination to take advantage of this freedom, but also a repertoire that may have few equals this side of Gerald Wiggins. Perhaps as the result of playing for acts by the thousands during his 18 years on “The Tonight Show,” he seems to know every popular and jazz tune worth remembering from the past six or seven decades.

During his first hour Thursday, his choices alternated with requests in a set that included “You and the Night and the Music,” “My Ideal,” “Younger Than Springtime” and Dizzy Gillespie’s “Con Alma” (which he had played Wednesday when Dizzy sat in at the club after his Hollywood Bowl gig).

Always an eclectic in whom traces of Oscar Peterson and others may be observed, Tompkins is as much at ease solo as with a rhythm section. He will return in the latter capacity Oct. 12. Next week, Wednesday through Saturday, the saxophonist and flutist Frank Wess will lead a quartet.