Webster’s Definition of Hip Has to Include Bob Dorough : Music: The jazz cult figure brings his wry lyrics and Southern vocals to Elario’s beginning tonight.

Pianist and singer Bob Dorough has often been labeled “hip,”but not by definitions most of us understand.

Dorough, who plays Elario’s tonight, Saturday and Sunday and turns 68 today, was hip before hip-hop, hippies and Hendrix. He was a member of the 1950s beat generation, a hipster friend and contemporary of poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and a host of other West Coast cool cats.

Such Dorough standards as “Webster’s Definition of Love,” with its dictionary diction, and “Legal Tender,” with lyrics lifted from a $5 bill, show the unconventional Dorough in his prime.

He takes what he calls “found” material--words on such everyday objects as parking tickets and Social Security cards--puts it to music and delivers his original songs and popular standards in a laid-back Arkansas twang, accompanying himself on be-bop-inspired piano.

Although Dorough has played or recorded with a number of jazz notables, including Miles Davis, his own recorded legacy is lacking, consisting of half a dozen albums scattered over the years since his 1956 debut, “Devil May Care.”

Dorough’s odd mix of wry humor and jazz have not translated into much commercial success, even after more than 30 years, but he seems reasonably, if sardonically, comfortable with cult status.

“Yes, I’m doing it for the art,” he said. “It would be nice if someone plugged it, but I’m just not well distributed. I operate a mail-order catalogue that I send to my fans, and I keep up a mailing list so they’ll know when I’m appearing.”

A new collection of Dorough’s ditties, titled “This Is a Recording by Bob Dorough,” is due next year. It is Dorough’s first attempt at utilizing computer and electronic technology. He built a backdrop of digital sounds at home on his farm near Mt. Bethel, Pa., before completing the tunes with traditional instruments and players in a studio.

But there’s yet another angle on “hip” that applies to Dorough. He is also popular with kids, and has been since he wrote the music for the ABC children’s television show “Multiplication Rock” in 1973.

“ ‘Multiplication Rock’ ” was laid in my lap,” Dorough said. “It was hatched by the president of a New York ad agency, David B. McCall. I had always had a thing for children. I had little brothers when I was a young man that were 10 and 13 years younger than I was.

“McCall had tried other New York jingle writers and they had come up with drivel. It sounded challenging. He said, ‘Don’t write down to the kids,’ and I tried to write these very intelligent songs. We intended to put out an LP and book for schools and libraries and parents, but it didn’t pan out. Suddenly, they decided to animate the favorite song from the group I had written, ‘Three Is a Magic Number,’ and they sold a Saturday morning show to ABC.”

During the next 12 years, Dorough worked on several children’s programs for ABC. Now he has a brand-new kids’ recording out for the Christmas season, something called “Wild Times at the Water Hole,” a collection Dorough and his musical associate Bernie Krause compiled utilizing authentic animal sounds they recorded all around the world. “Wild Times” is available at The Nature Company stores, including three in San Diego County.

Many of Dorough’s original 1970s fans have since grown up and become more inclined to like his jazz, but he usually includes one or two of his kids’ classics in his sets. This often provokes smiles of recognition from audiences, he said.

These days, Dorough distributes his music--including the upcoming release--by mail order through his own Laissez Faire label. He owns the rights to his last album, “Skabadabba,” released in 1985, and hopes to reissue it eventually.

“I don’t own the three European albums or ‘Multiplication Rock’ or ‘Jazz Canto,’ but I’m attempting to get control,” he said.

Dorough hasn’t had good luck with labels, dating back to his debut on Bethlehem.

“I would have made a second album, but they went out of business,” Dorough said. “Before I got another album organized, 10 years had gone by.”

Dorough moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1958 to make an album for Mode Records. Titled “Jazz Canto, Vol. I,” it featured Dorough, Ferlinghetti, Mulligan and saxophonist Paul Horn.

“I think I was a member of what they call the beat generation,” said Dorough, who never met Jack Kerouac. “It was natural that I would end up on ‘Jazz Canto,’ because the producer, Lawrence Lipton, wrote a book called ‘The Beat Generation.’ ”

While living in Los Angeles from 1958 to 1960, Dorough made occasional forays to San Francisco, where beat culture was flourishing.

“I did concerts and poetry readings with Ferlinghetti,” he said. “I went with the flow of things, which gets back to my being a cult figure. I was that way, I didn’t go knocking on doors, hanging out in agents’ offices, and I never happened to stumble across someone who knew how to package me.”

Having spent time on both coasts, Dorough has his own perspective on the history of modern American jazz. For one thing, he doesn’t buy the commonly held belief in distinct West Coast “cool” jazz and more energetic East Coast jazz.

“At the time I lived in Los Angeles, Ornette Coleman was forming his group here,” Dorough said. “Then he moved to New York and became one of the most avant-garde New York modernists. On the other hand, great artists in Los Angeles come from the East, from Texas, from Oklahoma. I just think both coasts have a lot of great artists.

“I’m sure there are arguments for East-West, hot-cool, but I think the strains of influence are passing back and forth, the influences are flying like mad. People zip around and fly a lot, it’s one world.”

The way Dorough talks, his cynical world view, his warm Arkansas voice, remind you of another laid-back Southern singer-pianist: Mose Allison. The two have more in common than just a few simple character traits.

“I feel a brotherhood with Mose. We’re colleagues,” Dorough said. “Back in 1950 or 1951, we used to go to the same jam sessions. That was the hotbed of be-bop activity in New York City, and we all jammed wherever we could--in lofts, anyplace the neighbors wouldn’t object. I would play piano and he would too, or he would play trumpet. He didn’t know I sang, I didn’t know he sang. He’s from Mississippi, I’m from Arkansas. He’s more firmly rooted in the blues.

“I guess I would say I come from country roots. If I’d have relaxed, I’d have gone to Nashville instead of New York City. My uncles played guitar and sang country songs.”

Dorough grew up in west Texas and majored in composition at North Texas State University, playing in the school’s legendary big bands, graduating in 1949 and heading immediately to New York. After his two years in Los Angeles, he moved back to New York, then to his farm in 1966.

“When I got married and had a daughter, I thought it would be better if she had fresh air than a cultural education,” Dorough said. “New York City was the center of culture, but it was difficult living there unless you had a higher income.”

Dorough’s daughter is a flutist with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. His wife, Corine, a dancer, died of cancer in 1986.

This week’s shows will feature Dorough with his longtime sidekick, guitarist Bill Takas.

“He was a young musician who came to New York like I did, only three or four years after me,” Dorough said. “He played on my first album in 1956, and we got back together in 1975 and started playing duos, because that was a viable situation economically. We weren’t superstars, but we were able to have a band, and we only take two airplane seats and two hotel rooms.”

Dorough’s shows at Elario’s tonight, Saturday and Sunday will begin at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Admission is $5. To receive a copy of the Laissez Faire catalogue, write Scharf/Dorough Ltd., P.O. Box 667, Stroudsburg, Pa., 18360.