Pianist Benoit Roams Spectrum of the Jazz Sound : Music: His appearance at East County Performing Arts Center is part of ‘Simply Jazz’ series.

Pianist David Benoit, best known for several albums of melodic pop jazz, proved he could swing on traditional, straight-ahead jazz with the 1989 album “Waiting for Spring.”

Benoit found the straight-ahead experience rewarding, especially the extra room for improvisation. But, on his new album, “Inner Motion,” released in September, he returned to the carefully crafted pop jazz he is best known for.

When he plays at the East County Performing Arts Center at 7 and 10 tonight, fans will get a taste of both styles. Benoit will open with a set from “Waiting for Spring” before heading into the lighter, pop-jazz material--the stuff that’s made him a mainstay of jazz radio stations like KIFM (98.1).

The evening is the second in the four-part “Simply Jazz” series, which will also include appearances by Larry Carlton (Feb. 15) and the Rippingtons (April 19). This is first time contemporary jazz has come to the Theater East, as the site is being billed for this series, and management hopes the music will help broaden the venue’s appeal to an audience of 25- to 45-year-olds it hasn’t served much before.

Benoit, 37, broadened his own appeal with “Waiting for Spring,” which topped Billboard’s traditional jazz chart for eight weeks and sold more than 130,000 copies, as many as his top pop-jazz efforts.

Recording the spontaneous, straight-ahead jazz only took a day-and-a-half to finish, Benoit said, and captured a much different spirit than “Inner Motion,” which took three weeks to record and included synthesizers, electronic overdubs and even a full symphony orchestra on one song.

“There’s a little difference between the two,” said the Palos Verdes resident. “The traditional jazz feeling is a little more intimate and personal. ‘Inner Motion’ and those types of records, with orchestras or big production, are thrilling in another way. But I don’t prefer one over the other, and I’d even like to record some classical music eventually.”

Benoit broke into the music scene in the late 1970s as a studio musician, composer and arranger in Los Angeles. He recorded six albums during the late 1970s for the small AVI label, but his breakthrough was the 1985 album “This Side Up,” which climbed high on Billboard’s contemporary jazz chart. From that success, he landed a contract with GRP, the New York-based giant of pop jazz for which he has now made five albums.

Outside his jazz career, Benoit has been busy with other projects.

He contributed one song to the album “Happy Anniversary Charlie Brown,” released last year. It has sold more than 300,000 copies.

And he composed the theme music for the television program “Shannon’s Deal” as well as scoring the background music for the first of 13 new episodes that will air this spring.

Another straight-ahead jazz album also may happen some day.

With both straight-ahead and lighter pop-jazz albums to his credit, including several for the popular GRP label, Benoit is often asked about the virtues of straight jazz versus light.

“There are so many definitions of the word jazz,” he said. “I grew up playing pop, rock and straight-ahead jazz. I’ve always played both sides of the fence, and I’ve been praised and criticized for different projects.

“On ‘Inner Motion,’ there are some tunes straight out of the pop tradition, like ‘Along Love’s Highway’ and ‘Every Corner of the World,’ and others are just instrumental music, like ‘Six String Poet.’ But the Brazilian number, ‘El Camino Real,’ has some of that improvisational jazz thing.

“Kenny G is basically considered a pop artist, yet he is still a jazz musician in my eyes, on the basis of improvisation,” said Benoit, referring to the pop jazz saxophonist whose albums sell in the millions.

“Improvisation, to me, is what jazz is. The settings can be different. It’s hard for me because I’ve played in a few settings with just a bassist and drummer where we do jazz standards, and people ask, ‘Why don’t you do this more often?’ Well, I like playing to more than 10 people.

“The jazz clubs have dwindled in L.A., although more restaurants are starting jazz policies. But you’re playing while someone’s eating a steak or having a drink.’ ”

Benoit, who wrote all of the music on “Inner Motion,” said he has been inspired as much by pop composers as he has by the legends of jazz.

“Two of the great pop composers are John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Look at their catalogue, tune after tune, all of the Beatles tunes. I have several friends in the business who all agree. Even Leonard Bernstein talked about Lennon and McCartney. Every song was totally different, with a different melody. They were like the Tin Pan Alley of the ‘60s. That’s what made them different from the Beach Boys or the Rolling Stones. They wrote songs.”

Besides the “Simply Jazz” series, Theater East promoter Jeff Gaulton has plans to expand the appeal of the 1,200-seat venue, which is owned and operated by the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District. The district hired Gaulton last year to help put the space to better use.

A four-event Big Band series opens Oct. 24 with a show featuring the Mills Brothers and singer Herb Jeffries, a former Duke Ellington Orchestra member. A country music series is planned for next summer, and Gaulton also hopes to book a limited number of rock acts--nothing too radical, music for young adults more than teen-agers.

Tickets for Benoit’s shows are $18.50. He will be backed by saxophonist Eric Marienthal, bassist Steve Bailey and drummer David Derge, who all play on the new album.