It was while lying in a hospital bed in the mid-1990s, his body racked by pain and paralysis, that jazz pianist Carei Thomas came up with the idea of the Gift Shop. Besieged by Guillain-Barré syndrome -- created by his immune system attacking his peripheral nervous system -- Thomas' mind searched for succor, and found it in the dream of a community openly commingling its arts and crafts.

"The idea is to create a beautiful series of interacting events," he said. "Get the lady at church who makes apple pies, the guy who tells stories to his grandsons, the hellified poet and the beautiful musicians, plus the guy who does marvelous things with flowers and the master chef. Put these people together and let them engage -- that's the Gift Shop."

Twice now, he has seen the concept through to fruition near his home in south Minneapolis, including a three-day extravaganza five years ago at Intermedia Arts. Last December his wife, Joyce, began planning another Gift Shop, without his knowledge.

On Thursday, one day after his 70th birthday, Walker Art Center will host tribute performances featuring poets and puppeteers, dancers and designers, textile and paint artists and nearly nonstop music. Afterward, there will be a party and more music at the Dakota Jazz Club. Fittingly, all of the performers have played with Thomas or been directly influenced by him -- and both shows will be free.

It seems like a case of positive karma coming home to roost, something that Thomas, a practicing Buddhist, can appreciate. Greeting me in his home, he exudes artistry -- his pinkish-red T-shirt printed with an original drawing of doughnut shapes and a helix that form an image of a snail, spinning off musical notes. Later he hands me a paper with the same drawing and a poem ("Alone in the Helix, Too") on the back.

Courting serendipity, chaos

Thomas moved with his family from Pittsburgh to Chicago when he was a teen, and his longstanding relationship with the Windy City's renowned Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) exerted a profound influence on his conceptual approach to art. Perhaps his best-known wrinkle is "Brief Realities," which inverts the standard jazz practice of composing a framework and then letting improvisation be the connecting tissue.

"I like the idea of something being free, and then, in that pool of freedom, there can be an island or cells of composed things," he said. He courts serendipity -- and chaos -- by broadening the possibilities of human interaction via different skill levels, artistic disciplines, moods and textures.

"His artistry is 'all permission granted,' which can create moments that are scrappy and messy and also wonderful and full of secret entities," said Philip Blackburn, director of artist services for the American Composers Forum, who has played with Thomas and distributed his music on the Innova label.

The change agent

From the moment Thomas arrived in Minneapolis in 1972, his contribution has been as much cultural as musical, as a unifying change agent. This was true 30 years ago, when the West Bank was a hippie haven and he helped bring AACM composer Anthony Braxton to the Rainbow Gallery, which Thomas remembers as "a wonderful place to practice, to put a cello beside a harmonica or a bassoon beside a crying child, to sound good or bad, and come back next week and sound better." It is true now, with Thursday's Walker program featuring a number of multifaceted ensembles he co-founded.

"I'm most impressed with his community role, his willingness to be expansive and take risks -- he performs with amateurs, veterans and master musicians," said longtime friend Janis Lane Ewart, executive director of KFAI Radio (90.3 and 106.7 FM) and the wife of AACM member Douglas Ewart.

Catalysts for free expression don't usually come sugar-coated, however.

When spoken-work artist J Otis Powell! first saw Thomas perform with Ancestor Energy 18 years ago, he called him and suggested they join forces. "Carei said, 'Get your own thing, man!' At first I was kind of offended and pouted like a little kid, but it turned out to be good advice." When he did stage a breakthrough gig, Thomas was there to accompany Powell! on piano.

Said Blackburn, "Carei is happy and grumpy and angry and serene -- he can change on a dime and there are no grudges. He lives in the moment, and when you can align your art with your life so closely, with no distinction, that is a great achievement."

'A lot of joy beckoning'

The fallout from Guillain-Barré compels Thomas to walk with a cane and has left his hands misshapen and inflexible. But by all accounts, his artistry and contribution to the community have become stronger since his return to performing after rigorous therapy.

During that bleak three- to four-year window, Carei's mother, Mary Thomas, came from Chicago to care for him and, at 92, continues to live and volunteer in the Twin Cities. That was also the time when his relationship with Joyce went from mere acquaintance to soul mate -- she married him when he was at his lowest ebb physically, and now has no difficulty finding one of her husband's compositions in a 9-inch-thick binder full of songs that she obviously catalogs.

Little wonder then that, as he views the horizon of his eighth decade, Thomas counts his blessings.

"I have a lot of joy in my life and in my soul," he said. "But more readily, I have a lot of joy beckoning to be dealt with."