JAZZ / DIRK SUTRO : ‘Architects of Change’ Is Building Momentum

Shoulder-length blond hair and the buffed-out ’67 Dodge he drives give San Diego musician Spencer Nilsen the image of a rock ‘n’ roller, but his career is moving to a commercial jazz beat.

At 27, Nilsen’s new album, “Architects of Change,” is propelling him onto the play lists of light jazz and adult contemporary music stations across the country. The album, released April 1, has already sold 25,000 copies, enough to make it “successful” among its peers.

Nilsen, whose father is an architect, has always been fascinated with architecture. “Architects of Change” is a “double-edge sword,” he said. “Building a song is like building a structure. You start with a concept, a dream, then you look at materials and subcontractors, or musicians. The other edge of the sword is the architects who help form the structure of our society, like Martin Luther King and the Kennedys.”

The music’s appeal isn’t tough to comprehend. The album--a richly textured brew of influences, from jazz to funk to the rock-jazz sound of Sting and others--is packed with pulsing rhythms and tunes that stay in your head for hours. Songs in which Nilsen’s acoustic piano plays a dominant role are too much in the New Age/Windham Hill tradition to create much fresh excitement, but other cuts are powerful.

The title track, for example, builds to an exhilarating climax with a chorus of vocals, flutes and assorted electronics soaring over the rock-steady beat. On “Pyramids,” an alto sax solo by San Diegan John Rekevics segues into a searing section from Pat Kelley on electric guitar. And “Church on Wally St.” pulses with Michael Spiro’s Afro-Cuban percussion work, the melody produced either on steel drums or a perfect electronic imitation.

Right now, keyboard player and engineer Nilsen is strictly a studio musician, but that will change when he tours with Checkfield, another San Diego studio band with a hit contemporary jazz album.

It was musician and producer John Archer, partners in Checkfield with Ronn Satterfield, who discovered Nilsen in an unusually roundabout way.

“I did 3 1/2 hours of original music for Eastman Kodak for a series of instructional videos for professional photographers,” Nilsen said. “John heard it, loved it, and we started working together. He pitched the idea of my doing an album to American Gramaphone (the label for which Archer produces and records) and we proceeded from there.”

Nilsen’s work includes sound tracks for television commercials for USAir, American Express and other companies.

For the album, Nilsen and Archer assembled a crack team of musicians, including top local talent and national players such as drummer Tommy Brechtlein (who has played with Chick Corea and Miles Davis) and violinist Daryl Anger (from the Windham Hill label).

With the success of the album, now being played on roughly 100 radio stations across the country and climbing the charts in radio industry magazines such as Friday Morning Quarterback and the Gavin Report, American Gramaphone has already picked up an option for Nilsen’s next recording. But he intends to let the hot “Architects of Change” run its course, and may not record again for a year or so.

You won’t be able to hear him live in the near future, but you can catch cuts from the album on KIFM (98.1) and KSWV-FM (102.9).

Friday nights at the Bucharest restaurant in La Jolla, singer Ellen Johnson runs through a repertoire that ranges from Ellington and Monk to Latin compositions by Jobim and others.

Backed by fine local pianist Randy Porter, Johnson has a versatility gained through years of training in both jazz and classical music. At San Diego State University, where she’s about to earn a master’s degree in voice, her education has been mostly in a classical vein under teacher Mary MacKenzie.

Her master’s thesis, a one-hour recital she’ll give later this year, will include Mozart, Debussy, Delius, Villa-Lobos and Bernstein, but she also plans to put some jazz in the lineup.

Johnson has also studied with Roland Wyatt, the Los Angeles vocal coach who helped Manhattan Transfer polish its sound, and at the American Conservatory of Music.

No less an authority than jazz singer and one-man orchestra Bobby McFerrin has recognized her talent. Johnson was one of only 20 singers from across the country who was picked by McFerrin for a workshop with him last summer.

She hopes to be out in the clubs more and more in the months ahead, especially early next year, after her graduate work is completed. But she’s not optimistic about what San Diego has to offer jazz singers.

“There just aren’t many places for us to play,” she said. For example, Pax, the La Jolla restaurant that had booked Johnson and other local jazz players, became the jazz-less Presto. But for now, at least the Bucharest gives us the chance to hear her.

RIFFS: Vibraphonist Terry Gibbs and clarinet player Buddy de Franco wind up their two-week stay at Elario’s tonight through Sunday. . . . KSDS-FM’s (88.3) “Jazz Live” monthly concert series at the City College Theater (15th and C streets) features an all-vocal lineup June 13: Coral Thuet, Sharon Andrews, Manzo Hill and Warren Wiebe, backed by Randy Porter on piano, Bill Andrews on bass and Ed Layman on drums. The free shows are broadcast live on KSDS. . . . New San Diegan and internationally known jazz sax man James Moody has been on the road with Dizzy Gillespie. . . . In the Horton Grand Hotel’s Palace Bar downtown: tonight, Shep Meyers duo; Friday night, Rod Cradit Trio; Saturday night, Lori Bell and Dave Mackay.