Pianoman Butch Thompson vividly recalls a night exactly 62 years ago this month in Washington County, Minn.

It was Christmastime. He was 12 years old, and he was playing piano, leading a small combo that closed his school’s holiday program with an instrumental version of “Silent Night.” The sixth-grade quartet — Thompson at the keys, two clarinets and a cornet — played the old carol three times through in unison.

“We played it straight,” Thompson remembers. “We had a comfortable, unthreatening reedy sound, not much different from an old pedal organ. As we say in the Midwest, it could have been worse.”

In fact, if Thompson had followed his jazz muse that December night in 1954, his “Silent Night” would have raised a few eyebrows. “Rehearsing at home one day, I happened to throw in a little ‘Good evening, friends’ blues lick that I thought sounded pretty good, but my mother persuaded me that people might not want to hear that kind of thing on a favorite hymn. They might be offended, she said, or worse, I thought they might laugh.”

‘Yulestride’

Nobody’s laughing now, as Thompson has established himself as one of the most vibrant and versatile of America’s performing pianists. Through his many appearances on Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” and with several carefree and comfortable jazz albums under his belt, Thompson has become one of the nation’s best-loved keyboard kings. And he’ll play “Silent Night” however he darn well pleases, thank you, and he does just that on “Yulestride” (Daring/Rounder Records), his 1997 holiday collection of 17 piano solos.

There’s something about the everlasting sustain of piano and organ notes, especially on grands and baby grands — the way those big hammers slam the string to send that note flying! And then there’s the counterplay of full-bodied chords against twinkling melody lines. And then glissando, the playful pawing of any number of keys on the keyboard all in one fell swoop.

Jazzing it up

There’s something about those special piano sounds that make it the perfect instrument for holiday tunes that seem to reside in our very veins, or at least our collective consciousness.

Thompson’s producer, the aptly-named Mason Daring, observed, “There can be no greater body of popular melodies than those we recall at Christmas. Butch’s deferential treatment of these melodies provides an astonishing result — the marriage of traditional jazz piano stylings, chief among them stride, with the familiar music of the holidays.”

In stride-style piano playing — pioneered in the 1920s by cats like James P. Johnson and Fats Waller — the left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or 10th interval on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats.

“‘Silent Night’ is a fragile and beautiful work,” Thompson comments in his “Yulestride” liner notes, explaining why he opens the disc with an adventurous re-interpretation of the ancient hymn.

“‘Silent Night’ is a melody I’ve known since before I could talk,” Thompson testifies. “This kind of music was the repertoire for many of my earliest public performances at church and at school.”

Keyboard memories

Those kind of memories are why these songs speak so strongly to us now. They harken back to more innocent times. We can all recall the schoolteacher plopped on the piano stool, paddling the pedals as she leads the class in a chorus of carols. Or maybe you remember an eggnog-swigging uncle plugging in the Wurlitzer in the living room, before bellowing his best Bing Crosby imitation.

And of course, there were the stately, high-as-the-sky church organs, whose powerful piping would vibrate in our very stomachs. Singing along loudly was the only way to counterbalance those windy reverberations.

And when we sang those hymns, with the keyboard leading the way, the hopeful harmonies seemed more hopeful somehow, more possible — maybe heavenly peace really was achievable. Or so it seemed.

Whatever rocky path we’ve tread since those green and golden days, however, we return every Christmas season to the same safe, snow-white glade…and music still lights the way, brightly.

The columnist can be contacted at [email protected].