Expect Spirit, Spontaneity From Pianist Benny Green

Pianist Benny Green’s new release, “Greens,” is one of the liveliest things to come along this year, but you can expect the music to be even more volatile during Green’s four nights at Elario’s beginning Thursday.

Green’s current tour, which opened in Canada last month, is moving steadily toward its climax: a live recording at the Village Vanguard in November. Along the way, Green, 28, and his spirited band mates--drummer Carl Allen, 30, and bassist Christian McBride, 18--are using each date to develop their new material, most of it written by Green.

“We’re just growing as a musical family,” Green said. “This tour has been an opportunity for the unit to become more integrated. The new album will have more emphasis on original material than our first two Blue Note releases.

“We have a certain feeling about the blues; we like the blues to be present in any piece we’re playing. Our direction is to swing and to have a lot of fun.”

Green has been fortunate in his musical associations all his life.

His father, Bert, is a semi-pro jazz saxman in Berkeley.

“He was my initial influence, probably my strongest influence,” Green said. “He turned me on to the music. I grew up hearing him play, and I heard his records--Ray Charles, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk.”

By his teens, Green was working with Bay Area trumpeter Eddie Henderson, and a year after graduating from high school in 1981, he moved to New York City.

There, Green went through the equivalent of jazz boot camp, backing notorious perfectionists Betty Carter (from 1983 to 1987) and drummer Art Blakey (for two years after that).

“I’ve had a whole lot of help from Betty Carter and Art Blakey, without question,” Green said. “They both swing so hard, and their feeling is very infectious.”

Green’s own music is technically intricate but also extremely driving, spirited and spontaneous, in the best Carter-Blakey traditions.

“We’re really playing music not only for ourselves but for people,” Green said. “We want it to be enjoyable, something you can feel--music that listeners don’t have to over-intellectualize to understand.”

The Benny Green Trio appears Thursday through Sunday at Elario’s. Show times are 8:30 and 10:30 each night.

A bit of belt-tightening has changed Elario’s plans for October and beyond.

Talent coordinator Rob Hagey had planned to sign pianist Dorothy Donegan to perform last week. Pianist McCoy Tyner, light-jazz harpist Deborah Henson-Conant and keyboard player Rob Mullins, who would have appeared with an all-star band, were among Hagey’s picks for future months.

But, in an effort to make the club more profitable, club owner Martin Mosier vetoed Hagey’s choices.

“These people are great musical artists, but my personal opinion was, I would find it difficult to collect enough money at the door to pay the fees that these artists want,” Mosier said.

Hagey substituted little-known Los Angeles singer B. J. Crosby for Donegan last week and booked local guitarist Bill McPherson and his band, World Beat, in place of Henson-Conant for this Wednesday.

Hagey had no comment on the scheduling changes, but Mosier made it clear that he will keep a close watch on the bottom line. Asked whether it is more important to him to maintain Elario’s longstanding reputation as the top local jazz room or to have the room turn a profit, Mosier acknowledged, without hesitation, that profits will come first.

Jazz-wise, September was a banner month at the club, with a lineup that included Betty Carter, Barney Kessel, Mark Whitfield, Ricardo Silveira and Flora Purim. But Mosier said September was a relatively poor month financially.

One of the club’s most consistently profitable acts has been San Diegans Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham and their Sweet Baby Blues Band, he said.

“There’s a lot of good local talent, and a lot of good national talent, but, generally speaking, local talent is better known,” Mosier said.

He expects the club’s future agenda to mix San Diego-based acts such as the Cheathams, Charles McPherson and Peter Sprague with out-of-town performers such as Benny Green (see above) and Joe Pass, who opens Oct. 30.

With more local venues offering first-rate jazz (the Jazz Note, the Horton Grand Hotel, the Inn L’Auberge), Mosier also said he expects to continue a policy that extends beyond straight-ahead jazz to light jazz, blues and other types of music, in an attempt to draw consistent audiences.

RIFFS: New Age Music, the acoustic guitar store in Hillcrest, continues its free Wednesday concerts this week with guitarist Art Johnson, flutist Lori Bell and bassist Rob Thorsen. Music starts at 8 p.m., and admission to this 45-seat cubbyhole is free. Bell turns up again this Saturday night at 8, this time with Latin jazz band Sol E Mar at the U.S. Grant Hotel downtown. . . .

Singer Kevyn Lettau plays the Jazz Note nightclub (above Diego’s in Pacific Beach) this Friday through Sunday nights, with shows at 9 and 11 on Friday and Saturday and 8 and 10 Sunday. Sadly, guitarist Peter Sprague, her frequent collaborator and co-member of BrazilJazz, is still out with tendinitis in a picking finger. Lettau will be joined by husband Michael Shapiro on drums, Bill Cantos on keyboards and vocals, Charles Meeks on bass and Tony Guerrero on trumpet and fluegelhorn. . . .

Time Is Records, San Diego’s only jazz label, has signed a deal to distribute a new recording by Common Ground, featuring Pacific Beach saxophonist Steve Feierabend. The new album will be released Nov. 10.