It’s the Great Pumpkin time again, and I am grateful to Charles Schulz for introducing me to jazz piano as a young child. Vince Guaraldi’s featherlight touch in the guise of Shroeder’s toy piano launched me into a world of Count Basie and Dave Brubeck.

Many times in many cities across the country, I have happened into a small unknown jazz club where an unknown combo allowed me to drift in and out of music and musings. And over the years while watching Peanuts specials with my children, my feet inevitably tap and my head absently bobs to all of Charlie Brown’s attempts at beauty.

Jazz pianist Eric Reed actually creates beauty in this month’s release of “Something Beautiful.” Named this year’s “Rising Star” in Downbeat magazine’s piano category, Reed plays jazz standards, gospel, pop, and his own compositions on this CD with a subtle and delicate urgency that blankets you with childlike optimism and happiness.

Sometimes I agree with Charlie Brown that happiness is over rated, and I completely relate to Shroeder’s devotion to Beethoven and hard work. But then Snoopy and Woodstock dance with innocent oblivion to the cares of our world.

To hear Reed play “Sun Out” by Lucky Thompson and Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way,” is like letting your ears and heart frolic with abandon. Reed’s rendition of the gospel staple “Lift Up Your Hands to the Lord,” can lift any soul into the stratosphere of joy. He gives a gentle Bossa Nova touch to Noel Coward’s “Mad About the Boy” and gracefully swings in Irving Berlin’s “How Deep is the Ocean.” Reed strips the keys to basic lyrical melody with his treatment of Billy Joel’s “Honesty.” The lonely, haunting treble notes penetrate deep. Reed’s exquisite piano enjoys a perfect complement of bass from Reuben Rogers and drums from Rodney Green.

But Reed’s own compositions, “If I Knew You” and title track “Something Beautiful,” give you a truer picture of Reed’s style as a musician and philosophy as a person. “Something Beautiful” bounces with an enthusiasm for life. The closing track, “If I Knew You,” is dedicated to his grandparents, whom he never knew. Again, the childlike innocence and uninhibited affection comes through in the gently rolling song. I am grateful that my children are near their grandfather and that they share in each other’s lives. But I when I play this song, I get a little nostalgic for my own father, who did not live long enough to celebrate with us the last time the St. Louis Cardinal’s won the World Series or to go through the October classic drama with us this year. My own children will never know the joys I had listening to Jack Buck on a pocket transistor radio in the back yard every summer with him. But they have their own joys.

Maybe the child in Reed cannot be separated from his music. He has been playing piano since he was two. He played for his father’s church in Philadelphia when he was five. He left college when called by Wynton Marsalis to tour with him in the early 1990s. Who wouldn’t answer a call from Marsalis? Perhaps more profoundly, Reed has answered a greater call. In the press release for this CD, Reed proclaims faith as his muse and what makes his work have an undaunted resilient quality.

I played this CD for my children in the car and for my students at school while they wrote in their journals. “Is this Charlie Brown?” they asked. No, but it is beautiful in that Charlie Brown way. This year, as my family does every year on Halloween, we will sit and watch “The Great Pumpkin” DVD and have hot chocolate and popcorn. And I am glad that my own children appreciate and enjoy the jazz piano too. I’m not expecting the Great Pumpkin to bring any presents, but I’m glad that Reed received his gift and has shared its beauty.