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Butch Thompson
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Artist Summary:
Performance Type: Instrumental Soloist
(Piano and Clarinet)
Performance Style(s): Jazz
Official Web Site:
http://butchthompson.com
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In a career spanning over 40 years, pianist and clarinetist Butch Thompson
has earned a worldwide reputation as a traditional jazz and ragtime master. He
tours widely as a soloist or at the helm of any of his several ensembles,
including his well-known trio, his eight-piece Jazz Originals band, the
Butch Thompson Big Three, or his unique chamber music duo with cellist
Laura Sewell. He has performed with many symphony orchestras,
including the Hartford Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Erie Philharmonic,
the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Cairo (Egypt) Symphony.
Widely know for his 12-year stint as house pianist on public radio’s A
Prairie Home Companion, he continues on the show as a frequent guest.
Born and raise in Marine-on-St. Croix, a small Minnesota river town, Thompson
was playing
Christmas carols on his mother’s upright piano by age three, and began formal
lessons at six. He studied clarinet in high school and led his first
professional jazz group as a teenager. After high school, he joined the Hall
Brothers New Orleans Jazz Band of Minneapolis, and t 18 made his first visit to
New Orleans, where he became one of the few non-New Orleanians to perform at
Preservation Hall during the 1960s and ‘70s.
In 1974, Thompson played on a number of the first Prairie Home Companion
broadcasts. By 1980, the show was being nationally syndicated, and the
Butch Thompson Trio was the house band, a position the group held for
the next six years.
During the ‘70s and ‘80s, Thompson’s travels widened as he became a regular as
he toured
extensively and often in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, including several
tours with New Orleansbased bands.
By the late ‘90s, Thompson was known as a leading authority on early jazz, and
he served as a consultant on the 1992 Broadway hit Jelly’s Last Jam. He
also joined the touring company of the off-Broadway hit Jelly Roll! The
Music and the Man, playing several runs with that show in New York and with
its touring company through 1997.
Among Thompson’s many recordings is his acclaimed 10-volume solo series on
Daring/Rounder and the 1997 Grammy-winning Verve release Doc Cheatham and
Nicholas Payton.
Electronic Press Kit Materials:
Click on a link to open it, or right-click on an item and select "Save Target As..." to save it to your computer.
Images:
Video Clips (Windows Media Format):
Butch Thompson
Promotional Video (46 MB)
Video DVD (DVD Disc ISO image in a Zip file):
Butch Thompson
Promotional DVD (295 MB)
Audio Samples (MP3 Format):
Charleston Rag
If I Could Be With You One
Hour Tonight
Lady Be Good
Mamie's Blues
Stars & Stripes Forever
Documents (MS Word Format):
Butch Thompson Solo
Press Release
Butch Thompson Trio
Press Release
Butch Thompson "Big
3" Press Release
Butch Thompson
"Chamber Jazz" Press Release
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