A pianist since the age of five, Malachi Thompson later switched to trumpet, playing with various rhythm and blues combos in Chicago's South Side. His jazz career took root in 1967 when he joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a Chicago-based organization that promotes creative avant-garde music. In the intervening years, Thompson worked with a slew of artists including Collective Black Artists Orchestra, Von Freeman, Joe Henderson, King Kolax, Victor Lewis, Jackie McLean, Sam Rivers, Sonny Seals, and Joe Williams. In the late '70s Thompson became co-leader, with Norman Spiller, of Brass Proud. He also led his own groups and was the musical director of Inner Space-Outer Space, a multimedia theatre project. Diagnosed with cancer in the late '80s, Thompson continued to persue theatrical endeavours during musical downtimes, even writing a play, THE JAZ LIFE, in 1990. After a long battle, Thompson succumbed to the disease in 2006.