Richard Enos "Butch" Thompson (November 28, 1943 – August 14, 2022) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

pianist and clarinetist best known for his

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...

and

stride Stride or STRIDE may refer to: Computing * STRIDE (security), spoofing, tampering, repudiation, information disclosure, denial of service, elevation of privilege * Stride (software), a successor to the cloud-based HipChat, a corporate cloud-based ...

performances.

Music career

Thompson was born in

Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota Marine on St. Croix is a city in Washington County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 689 at the 2010 census. It was founded in 1839 as Marine Mills. The city was the site of the first commercial sawmill on the St. Croix River. A ...

, began playing piano at the early age of three, and began taking lessons at age six. At Stillwater Area High School, he played clarinet in the band. In 1962 he joined the Hall Brothers New Orleans Jazz Band in Minneapolis and remained with the band for twenty years. From 1974–1986, he was a regular and the original pianist on the radio show ''

A Prairie Home Companion ''A Prairie Home Companion'' is a weekly radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor that aired live from 1974 to 2016. In 2016, musician Chris Thile took over as host, and the successor show was eventually renamed ''Live from He ...

''. Since the 1960s, he led the Butch Thompson Trio. In the 1970s, Thompson's recordings gained popularity in Europe. He toured the continent extensively in the 1970s and 1980s, both as a solo artist and as a band leader or member. He wrote for jazz publications and produced a radio show, ''Jazz Originals'', for

KBEM-FM KBEM-FM (88.5 FM, "Jazz88") is a Minneapolis, Minnesota public radio station broadcasting a jazz format. The station is operated by the Minneapolis public school system and has been partnering since 1989 with the Minnesota Department of Transpor ...

in Minneapolis.

Selected Discography

* ''Yulestride'' (Daring Records, 1994)

Death

Thompson died on August 14, 2022, at the age of 78.

References

External links

Official site
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Butch 1943 births 2022 deaths American jazz clarinetists American jazz pianists American male pianists People from Washington County, Minnesota Ragtime pianists Stride pianists 20th-century American pianists Jazz musicians from Minnesota 21st-century American pianists 21st-century clarinetists 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians