November 1943 - August 2022
BUTCH'S STORY
Born in a small Minnesota river town, Thompson played Christmas carols on his mother’s upright piano by age three, and began formal lessons at six. He studied clarinet in high school, and as a teenager led his first professional jazz group, Shirt Thompson & His Sleeves.
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Photo: Travis Anderson
Star Tribune article 8/15/2022 by Jon Bream, "Minnesota piano giant Butch Thompson dies at 78".
Butch Thompson's Life in Music Celebration Slideshow. Click here.
YULESTRIDE! Order Butch's ever popular holiday collection of his own arrangements. CD page.
THE MUSIC
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Evolving Jazz Tradition
Butch brings his own voice to the classic jazz repertoire of blues, stomps, ragtime and pop songs. From Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag to Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo, from Jelly Roll Morton's New Orleans jazz to the virtuosic stride piano of 1920s Harlem, Butch has played his personal style from Cairo to Kansas City.
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MUSIC FOR ALL OCCASIONS
Whether he's working solo, with his well-known trio, or other ensembles around home or in New Orleans, Butch delivers variety and the pure, contagious joy of music making.
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Jelly Roll Morton said it best
Jazz was born in New Orleans, he said, from a gumbo of "everything from blues to opera. Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm. When you have your plenty rhythm with your plenty swing, it becomes beautiful."
One afternoon on a New Orleans porch. From left: Tom Ebbert, Brian O'Connell, Butch, Bill Huntington, Chuck Badie, Duke Heitger.