The trumpeter Eddie “Tan Tan” Thornton, who has died aged 94, made the melodies and cadences of his native Jamaica a subtle undercurrent of London’s swinging 60s music scene. As a member of Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames, Thornton contributed to the brass section’s bright and forceful fanfares that helped Getaway top the British charts in June 1967, a year after his furious trumpet was part of the driving counter-melody on the Beatles’ Got to Get You into My Life.
Widely admired for his musical adaptability and for his dependable and easygoing personality, Thornton collaborated with some of the era’s greatest talents, including the Animals, Sandie Shaw and Jimi Hendrix (who lodged with him in London for a time). He played on the Rolling Stones’ She’s a Rainbow and on the Small Faces’ eponymous second album, whose bittersweet closing number, Eddie’s Dreaming, was inspired by Thornton’s longing for Jamaica. He subsequently became an important part of the British reggae scene, notably in the horn section that helped Aswad to achieve greater fame.
