Parents Want Prodigy to ‘Have It All’ : Music: Fourteen-year-old flutist Gregory Lawrence Jefferson joins Henry Mancini and L.A. Philharmonic tonight at Hollywood Bowl.

Gregory Lawrence Jefferson is not your typical 14-year-old.

For one thing, his bedroom is tidy . There’s a neat rock and baseball card collection on the credenza in one corner, and a synthesizer that stands in another.

But his most prized possession is a $3,000 silver flute. Already a Young Musicians Foundation/Henry Mancini scholarship winner, Jefferson is well on his way to a career in music.

Tonight at Hollywood Bowl, the young musician will team up again with the composer/conductor and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to perform such Mancini hits as “Moon River,” “Charade” and “Days of Wine and Roses.”

Jefferson, who rises weekdays at 4 a.m. to practice before going to school, is also interested in piano and jazz.

As Mancini points out, Jefferson has “a lot of cool.”

“Gregory is dedicated and talented,” said Mancini, who first spotted Jefferson when the teen-ager appeared on “The Tonight Show.” “He has a great temperament and is seemingly unflappable.”

On a recent sunny morning, Jefferson, clad in neatly pressed jeans and a brown T-shirt, appeared at ease at his Pasadena home where together with parents Joann and Ruddie Jefferson he discussed the long and winding road he is taking towards becoming a serious artist.

Six years ago, when a teacher from the Pasadena School District showed students an assembly of musical instruments, Jefferson pounced on the flute, returning home to announce that the wind instrument “was to be his life,” his mother recalled.

Now, his parents must grapple with questions such as how to find the right teacher. Is private tuition more beneficial than study at a music school? When to accept or turn down engagements? And should the child perform gratis, or be paid for appearances that provide opportunities for growth?

“We want to do this right,” Joann Jefferson explained. “We want Gregory to have it all.”

But expenses run high.

Ruddie Jefferson, a lieutenant with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said twice-weekly flute lessons even at a reduced rate with Los Angeles Philharmonic principal flutist Anne Diener Giles run $50 an hour; private jazz lessons cost $30; piano instruction at Pasadena Conservatory of Music runs $35 and theory lessons average about $25 a session.

Then there are “all those nice clothes” required for interviews and concerts, and $90 tux rentals.

Ultimately, says Joann Jefferson, a former Wells Fargo Bank representative, choices are made with Gregory’s happiness in mind.

“We don’t care about the glamour,” she said. “We don’t accept any engagements without consulting our son first. We want him to have a good education and get good grades and know all there is about music and to have the proper repertory before he goes out on his own.”