Pianist Billy Childs Back From Tour, Ready to Play Costa Mesa Tonight

Just back from a number of club dates on the East Coast, Billy Childs was expressing satisfaction with the way things had gone.

“We played Boston, D.C., Indigo Blues in New York,” said the keyboardist from his apartment in Los Angeles. “The best gig was in D.C. at Blues Alley. We got a standing ovation on the first set.”

Childs, 32, will bring his quartet (saxophonist Bob Sheppard, bassist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Mike Baker) to Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center for two shows tonight. Though New York is the traditional proving ground for ambitious young jazz musicians, the Southern California native doesn’t think that staying in Los Angeles has hurt his career.

“I might have gotten fame and notoriety more quickly in New York. But then I wouldn’t have developed in the way that I did,” Childs said. “The competition is so rough there it would have been all I could do just to establish myself as a piano player. But here, not too many people do what I do, so I can feel comfortable with what I do and I can go on and do other things.”

Childs quit the piano lessons his mother arranged for him at age 6. But as a teen-ager at a prep school outside Santa Barbara, he fought boredom by working out Emerson, Lake & Palmer progressive-rock tunes on the dining room upright. His older sisters had exposed him to musicians ranging from Donald Byrd to Laura Nyro and by the time he was in high school Childs was playing jazz.

After successfully auditioning for the USC School of Music, the keyboardist began to sit in regularly with the band at Onaje’s, a now-defunct club near the campus. There, he established a friendship with drummer Kevin Johnson, which led to Johnson’s father, the innovative trombonist and film composer J.J. Johnson, asking the young pianist in 1977 to accompany him on a tour of Japan. After the tour, Childs became the pianist for trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s band.

“I think my greatest learning experiences came from Freddie and J.J. and other people that I have known that were more musically aware than me, people who have lived the kind of life that I’m striving for, like Joe Henderson and George Coleman. Freddie taught me what to do as a player, as a pianist, as an explorer, which is what I am by nature.”

Last year was a big one for Childs. He toured with saxophonist Branford Marsalis and rejoined Hubbard for a much-praised club date at the Blue Note in New York. And his first album for Windham Hill Jazz, “Take For Example This” (the title comes from a poem by E. E. Cummings) was released to critical acclaim.

His latest, “Twilight Is Upon Us,” puts the focus on Childs’ considerable compositional skills. The tunes range from involved workouts like “Mount Olympus” to more straight-ahead treatments such as “Like Father, Like Son.”

Childs’ passion for composing developed when he was introduced to classical music at USC. “When I heard (composer and teacher Paul) Hindemith, that was it,” he said. Childs has composed two percussion concertos and is nearly finished with a string concerto that he has programmed into one of his synthesizers. Lately, he has been enamored with Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto. “It’s really hip. I can’t describe the way he writes for piano in relation to the orchestra. It’s very melodic.”

Childs thinks that being in Los Angeles has been important to his own development as a composer. “If I lived in New York, I don’t think that I would have been into composition as I am. For me to compose, I need peace of mind and space, which is something you just don’t have in New York. My music comes from different places. New York may be pretty stressful compared to L.A., but there are guys there that write the most beautiful stuff and here I am in L.A. writing this frantic, frenetic stuff. I can write music as wild as anybody.”

Billy Childs will perform today at 7:30 and 10 p.m. in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $16. Information: (714) 556-2787.