Don Thompson’s original “Journey to Skye” on piano and his own manuscripts

As a special bonus for pipes|drums readers who have enjoyed our exclusive conversation with jazz virtuoso Don Thompson, composer of “Journey to Skye,” we’re pleased to bring you Thompson himself playing his piece on piano at his home recording studio.

The 85-year-old Thompson hasn’t looked at the manuscript much, or perhaps at all, since he created the piece in the 1980s. The poise with which he approached it here shows a remarkably different interpretation from what Bill Livingstone and Reid Maxwell came up with in 1987.

Of particular note are his initial ideas for percussion accompaniment, which he stressed he left out of the score since he admitted to having no idea what pipe band-style drumming was all about.

Also, Thompson’s original manuscript of the piece in pencil and a more polished version done using the Sebelius notation application are available for your enjoyment and use.

After we published the first part of our conversation with Thompson, we heard from Tim Murphy, a snare drummer with the 78th Fraser Highlanders for many years, including when the band first learned and performed “Journey to Skye.”

He sent us a copy of the recording of the piece that Thompson made in 1987 for the 78th Frasers’ Pipe-Major Bill Livingstone. “Don recorded this on his piano, and he also did the ‘percussion’ bits using a four-track recorder,” Murphy said. “I saved this cassette for years, and when the 2016 concert [the “Live Back in Ireland” reunion event of 2016] came up I told Bill I still had a copy and he asked for it. He hinted I would never get it back, so I made this recording before handing it over. Anyway, I thought it might make an interesting addition to the pipes|drums piece so people can hear how Don imagined it originally.”

Listen to the audio recording here:

We thank Tim Murphy for thinking of us, and thanks once again to Don Thompson for shairing the story of the creation of “Journey to Skye.”

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