Music Review - Jazz Pianist Pays Tribute to Lucky Thompson - NYTimes.com In jazz, the tenor and soprano saxophonist Lucky Thompson isn't the one that got away. Rather, he's one of dozens, maybe hundreds. But he was a big one. Properly appreciated - and the pianist Eric Reed's current week of Thompson-centered gigs at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola might help with this - Lucky Thompson might have generated a more complete understanding of jazz in the 20th century. He could have helped us understand, for instance, that the 1940s weren't entirely about bebop and that the soprano saxophone in the 1960s wasn't entirely about John Coltrane. He extended the capacious, dramatic sound and modern harmonic ideas of Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry from the 1930s, as well as the streamlined and mercurial improvising of Paul Gonsalves. He developed a ballad style that was crazily modern for its time, delicate but different from Lester Young's. Check out what he does on "Rich Man's Blues," from 1945, with Dinah Washington. But he ended up on a track parallel to but apart from the consensus histories of jazz's development and died in 2005 at 81, homeless or hospitalized for much of his last decade. Mr. Reed's quartet, with the saxophonist Victor Goines, the bassist Reuben Rogers and the drummer Rodney Green, celebrates Lucky Thompson through Sunday at Dizzy's. The sets focus on Thompson as composer, mostly from the second half of his career. Rightly so: great as Thompson was as an improviser, you don't want to hear people copying his solos, if indeed they could. It would be showing off. Plus, some of the records that contain those tunes - like "Lucky Strikes" (1964), "Lucky Meets Tommy and Friends" (1965) and "Home Comin" " (1973) - are all somewhere along the scale of cultish to obscure. They deserve attention. On the outside, much of the second set on Tuesday sounded like affable, idiomatic "60s and "70s postbop. But Thompson's writing contained unusual turns: a chord change on every other beat in the étudelike "Monsoon"; a waltz with unusual harmonic wending in "Soul-Lullaby"; a masked blues form in the theme of "Prey-Loot." It's rich ground. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Green are excellent musicians who haven't worked together before, and so the rhythm section will need a couple of days to calm down a little. Mr. Reed, as usual, was precise and energized, ready for games of back and forth, impressively fast in Thompson's "Fly With the Wind," salting the music with blues phrases; he's also such a tenacious accompanist that the music sometimes felt crowded. This gig demands not only a saxophonist equally strong on tenor and soprano, but also one who can resist mannerisms. Thompson didn't absorb many clichés from swing, bop, or anything else; on tenor he reined in his vibrato and on soprano he sounded dry and bright. And Mr. Goines did exactly the right thing, getting those clean, smart attributes into his playing. The Eric Reed Quartet continues at Dizzys Club Coca-Cola, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway, through Sunday night; jalc.org.