{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox album | name = The Thompson Fields | type = studio | artist = Maria Schneider Orchestra | cover = The Thompson Fields - Maria Schneider.jpg | alt = | released = {{Start date|2015|6|22}} | recorded = August 2014 | venue = | studio = Avatar, New York City | genre = Jazz, big band | length = {{Duration|m=77|s=21}} | label = ArtistShare | producer = Maria Schneider, Ryan Truesdell | prev_title = Winter Morning Walks | prev_year = 2013 | next_title = Data Lords | next_year = 2020 }} {{Music ratings |rev1=All About Jazz |rev1score={{rating|5|5}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bilawsky |first1=Dan |title=Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields |url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-thompson-fields-maria-schneider-artistshare-review-by-dan-bilawsky.php |website=All About Jazz |accessdate=20 July 2018 |date=June 2, 2015}}</ref> |rev2=''The Daily Telegraph'' |rev2score={{rating|5|5}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hewett |first1=Ivan |title=Maria Schneider Orchestra, The Thompson Fields, album review |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11665542/Maria-Schneider-Orchestra-The-Thompson-Fields-album-review.html |website=The Daily Telegraph |accessdate=20 July 2018 |date=11 June 2015}}</ref> |rev3=''The Guardian'' |rev3score={{rating|5|5}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=John |first1=Fordham |title=Maria Schneider: The Thompson Fields review – heartening jazz suite that's too good to miss |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/17/maria-schneider-the-thompson-fields-review |website=The Guardian |accessdate=20 July 2018 |date=17 December 2015}}</ref> |rev4=''The Irish Times'' |rev4score={{rating|4|5}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Larkin |first1=Cormac |title=The Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields - Album Review |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-maria-schneider-orchestra-the-thompson-fields-album-review-1.2254675 |website=The Irish Times |accessdate=20 July 2018 |date=19 June 2015}}</ref> }}
'''''The Thompson Fields''''' is an album by the Maria Schneider Orchestra that won the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 2017.<ref name="Park">{{cite web|last1=Park|first1=Andrea|title=Grammys 2016: List of winners|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/grammys-2016-list-of-winners/|website=CBS News|accessdate=5 February 2017|language=en|date=15 February 2016}}</ref> Schneider was the composer, conductor, and co-producer of the autobiographical work. The title comes from the Minnesota farm where she was raised.<ref name="Whitehead">{{cite web|last1=Whitehead|first1=Kevin|title='The Thompson Fields' Mixes Prairie Dreaming With A Big-Band Beat|url=https://www.npr.org/2015/08/18/432730788/the-thompson-fields-mixes-prairie-dreaming-with-a-big-band-beat|website=NPR.org|accessdate=5 February 2017|date=18 August 2015}}</ref><ref name="Ramsey">{{cite web|last1=Ramsey|first1=Doug|title=Maria Schneider: The Thompson Fields|url=http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/2015/06/maria-schneider-the-thompson-fields.html|website=Rifftides|accessdate=22 March 2017|date=19 June 2015}}</ref>
''The Thompson Fields'' comes with over fifty pages of liner notes containing photographs, drawings, and Schneider's thoughts about nature.<ref name="Kaplan">{{cite web|last1=Kaplan|first1=Fred|title=Maria Schneider Orchestra, The Thompson Fields | url = http://www.stereophile.com/content/maria-schneider-orchestra-thompson-fields|website=Stereophile.com|accessdate=5 February 2017|language=en|date=4 June 2015}}</ref>
==Critical reception== In ''Stereo Review'' magazine, music critic Fred Kaplan called the album a masterpiece and ranked Schneider with big band composers Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Gil Evans, adding that she worked as an assistant to Evans and Bob Brookmeyer early in her career.<ref name="Kaplan" /> Critic Kevin Whitehead of NPR praised the album, though he said the album's grandeur could get "too purple".<ref name="Whitehead" /> At ''All About Jazz'', Dan Bilawsky called the album "awe-inspiring". He said that the quotation from Theodore Roosevelt on the liner notes fits much of Schneider's music: "'There is nothing more practical in the end than the preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions in mankind.'"<ref name="Bilawsky">{{cite web|last1=Bilawsky|first1=Dan|title=Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields|url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-thompson-fields-maria-schneider-artistshare-review-by-dan-bilawsky.php|website=All About Jazz|accessdate=5 February 2017|date=2 June 2015}}</ref> In ''The New York Times'', Nate Chinen wrote that she is borrowing methods used by Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis but that she has her own way of "using timbre and harmony to bring a tactile presence to the dimensions of sound." Chinen added that her orchestra planned to perform this pastoral composition at the Birdland club in New York City.<ref name="Chinen">{{cite web|last1=Chinen|first1=Nate|title=Review: Maria Schneider Orchestra's 'The Thompson Fields,' Connections to the Natural World|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/arts/music/review-maria-schneider-orchestras-the-thompson-fields-connections-to-the-natural-world.html|website=The New York Times|accessdate=16 September 2018|date=1 June 2015}}</ref> Doug Ramsey at ''Arts Journal'' called ''The Thompson Fields'' a suite because of "its unity of style and its mood of reflection."<ref name="Ramsey" />
In the UK, Ivan Hewett of ''The Daily Telegraph'' comments on the importance of the liner notes, the bird paintings by Audubon, and how the music mimics the Minnesota landscape's "quality of being both huge and intimate."<ref name="Hewett">{{cite web|last1=Hewett|first1=Ivan|title=Maria Schneider Orchestra, The Thompson Fields, album review|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11665542/Maria-Schneider-Orchestra-The-Thompson-Fields-album-review.html| website = Telegraph.co.uk|accessdate=22 March 2017|language=en|date=11 Jun 2015}}</ref> At ''The Guardian'', John Fordham commented that, although ''The Thompson Fields'' is reflective, it also swings.<ref name="Fordham">{{cite web|last1=Fordham|first1=John|title=Maria Schneider: The Thompson Fields review – heartening jazz suite that's too good to miss | url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/17/maria-schneider-the-thompson-fields-review|website=The Guardian|accessdate=22 March 2017|date=17 December 2015}}</ref>
''The Thompson Fields'' won best jazz album of the year in the Readers' Poll at ''Down Beat'' magazine.<ref name="Morrison">{{cite magazine |last=Morrison |first=Allen |date=December 2016 |title=Schneider Attacking the Data Lords |magazine=Down Beat |location=Elmhurst, Illinois}}</ref>
==Track listing== {{Track listing | all_writing = Maria Schneider | title1 = Walking by Flashlight | length1 = 5:01
| title2 = The Monarch and the Milkweed | length2 = 12:07
| title3 = Arbiters of Evolution | length3 = 13:59
| title4 = The Thompson Fields | length4 = 10:00
| title5 = Home | length5 = 7:46
| title6 = Nimbus | length6 = 9:29
| title7 = A Potter's Song | length7 = 5:29
| title8 = Lembrança | length8 = 13:30 }}
{{track listing | headline = On-line purchase download bonus tracks
| title9 = Lembra de Mim | length9 = 6:24 | note9 = By Ivan Lins
| title10 = Dance You Monster To My Soft Song | length10 = 7:04 }}
Source: Allmusic<ref name="AM">{{cite web|title=The Thompson Fields - Maria Schneider Orchestra, Maria Schneider {{!}} Songs, Reviews, Credits {{!}} AllMusic|url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-thompson-fields-mw0002859187|website=AllMusic|accessdate=5 February 2017}}</ref>
"A Potter's Song" was dedicated to the memory of Laurie Frink, a trumpet player who had performed on all previous albums by the Maria Schneider Orchestra.<ref name="Chinen" />
==Personnel== {{Div col|colwidth=30em}} * Dave Pietro – alto saxophone, clarinet, piccolo, flute, alto flute, bass flute * Steve Wilson – alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute, alto flute * Rich Perry – tenor saxophone, flute * Donny McCaslin – tenor saxophone, clarinet * Scott Robinson – baritone saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet * Greg Gisbert – trumpet, flügelhorn * Augie Haas – trumpet, flügelhorn * Tony Kadleck – trumpet, flügelhorn * Mike Rodriguez – trumpet, flügelhorn * Marshall Gilkes – trombone * Ryan Keberle – trombone * Keith O'Quinn – trombone * George Flynn – bass trombone, contrabass trombone * Frank Kimbrough – piano * Gary Versace – accordion * Lage Lund – guitar * Jay Anderson – bass * Clarence Penn – drums * Rogerio Boccato – percussion<ref name="official cred">{{cite web |title=Thompson Fields |first=Maria |last=Schneider |url=https://www.mariaschneider.com/home/albuminfo?id=1007 |website=mariaschneider.com |accessdate=11 April 2022}}</ref> {{div col end}}
== References == {{reflist}}
{{Maria Schneider (musician)}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson Fields}} Category:2015 albums Category:Big band albums Category:Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album Category:Jazz albums by American artists Category:Maria Schneider (musician) albums