Jazz Piano Holds Key to Greco’s Past : Performance: After years as a vocal, he’s ready to go back to his musical roots. In Newport Beach, he’ll both sing and play.

At age 65, Buddy Greco has seen his career come full circle. The singerkeyboardist, who had minor hits in the ‘50s and ‘60s with such tunes as “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Around the World” and “Mr. Lonely,” now says, “I’ve decided to go back to my roots, which is being a jazz piano player.”

The result is a new self-produced recording, “The Magic of It All,” an album that focuses on standards and includes such jazz names as harmonica-player Toots Thielemans, saxophonist Grover Washington Jr., trumpeter Jack Sheldon and clarinetist Buddy DeFranco. “I’ve got all my friends on it,” he said earlier this week by phone from his home in Thousand Oaks. “It’s been a labor of love. I wanted to do this for 35 years.”

The circle becomes complete at the end of this year when Greco begins a 12-week tour with the Benny Goodman band. It was 1949 when Goodman came into Philadelphia’s Club 13, heard Greco, who had been leading his own trio since the age of 17, and hired him as his keyboardist.

“I always wanted to be my own boss,” said Greco, who appears Sunday at the Cafe Lido in Newport Beach. “I never liked working with anybody. When I first made a couple of records that were little hits, people like Charlie Ventura, Buddy DeFranco and Dizzy (Gillespie) used to mention me for their band. But I never wanted to work with them. The only guy I really wanted to work for was Benny Goodman. Luckily, one night he came in and hired me.”

Greco went on to record a series of albums on the Epic label (“I Like It Swinging,” “Buddy’s Back in Town,” and “Sings for Intimate Moments”) while making frequent appearances in Las Vegas and on television, including a primary role on the CBS variety show “Away We Go” with George Carlin and Buddy Rich. He credits Nat King Cole with pointing him in the right direction.

“I’m basically a jazz piano player who made it as a singer like Nat Cole did--he started me. He was my best friend. A lot of the stuff I do is stuff he gave me over the years. Now, with the success he’s been enjoying recently, thank God, it’s popular all over again.”

Though there have been ups and downs in his long career, Greco said, “I’ve been lucky. . . . I always happened to be in the right place at the right time. Through my Benny Goodman days, through the Rat Pack thing, my friendship with Marilyn Monroe--I’ve got so many stories.”

Greco has collected those stories into an autobiography that he’s taking to publishers. “It’s not a tell-all kind of book,” he explained. “Just a lot of nice stories for the folks who wonder what ever happened to Buddy Greco.”

A prominent figure in the book is Jackie Linville, a former Playboy Playmate of the Year whom Greco married in 1974. In addition to raising three children, Linville has also helped her husband manage his career while she continues to appear in beauty pageants--she’ll be competing for the Mrs. California title this year.

Married three times before meeting Linville, Greco agrees with the adage about finding a good woman behind the successful man. “If that ever applied to anybody, it applies to me. I came from south Philadelphia, which was a rough neighborhood. I’ve always had this rough thing about me; I thought that’s how you deal with life. Then meeting this lady some 17 years ago--she just changed my life. People who have known me for years just can’t get over the change.

“My priority now is to enjoy my family, which is the most important thing in my life, to be a decent person and to try to keep my music in a good place without compromising. I’m in the best period of my life right now. Thanks to the good music that’s happening today, my career is doing well again.”

Greco, who will be backed by saxophonist Kim Richmond, bassist Rex Robinson and drummer Dave Tull, works about 35 weeks a year, touring the United States and Europe. He says the Cafe Lido date is special.

“I very, very seldom work little jazz rooms. I usually do festivals, concerts, Atlantic City, wherever. But every once in awhile I like to get back to my roots and do something for fun just to enjoy myself.”

The show, he says, will display both sides of Buddy Greco. “Some of the people who come to see me are jazz enthusiasts. And then there are people who know me as a singer. So we’ll incorporate both, but it’s all good music.”

Buddy Greco appears at 5 and 8 p.m. Sunday at Cafe Lido, 501 30th St., Newport Beach. Tickets: $15. Information: (714) 675-2968.