Playing on the Edge : Versatile Ron Eschete Not Afraid to Take Chances on His Jazz Guitar

Ron Eschete, the splendid jazz guitarist who has recorded and performed with bassist Ray Brown, vibist Milt Jackson and pianist Gene Harris, figures it has been three years since he worked a job he didn’t like. That kind of good fortune, he said, has followed him all his life.

“I kind of feel like I’ve got an angel on my shoulder,” said the Houma, La., native, who currently lives in Norwalk, in a recent interview.

Eschete, who will play jazz classics and pop standards Thursday in a quartet that features fellow guitarist Joe DiOrio at El Matador in Huntington Beach, is a versatile artist who can deliver in a number of musical contexts. His ample capabilities are in clear view on new albums by Harris and vibist Charlie Shoemake.

Shoemake’s “Strollin’ ” finds Eschete performing in a quintet setting with a fluid, graceful approach emphasizing his warm tone and ability to weave brief musical nuggets into longer strands of colorful melodies. On Harris’ “Black and Blue”--which also features bassist Luther Hughes, who appears with Eschete and DiOrio at El Matador--the guitarist reveals the soulful, bluesy aspect of his playing, fitting in perfectly with Harris’ earthy stance.

Eschete, 42, often appears in duos in his regular engagements at Loews Santa Monica Beach hotel on Sundays and Mondays, and at the Blue Parrot in Studio City on Fridays and Saturdays. That configuration is one that exploits the possibilities of the guitarist’s custom-made seven-string guitar.

“The extra string allows me to play a bass line and a melody line or chords simultaneously, so that a little band can get an orchestral sound,” said Eschete, whose last two solo albums are “Stump Jumper” and “Christmas Impressions,” both recorded in the mid-’80s.

The quartet setting with DiOrio at El Matador will be more experimental and explosive, says Eschete, who moved to Southern California in 1970. Before settling in Downey, he lived for six years in Orange County and performed steadily at the now-defunct Hungry Joe’s in Huntington Beach with Harris and vibist Dave Pike.

“We play close to the edge. We take a lot of chances,” he said. His association with DiOrio began in 1976, when they, along with Don Mock, were the three guitar teachers at the Guitar Institute of Technology (now known as Musicians’ Institute) in Hollywood. Eschete and DiOrio still teach there.

“We stretch the music as much as we can. Sometimes you get out on a limb and you get sawed off,” he said. That was his way of acknowledging that sometimes musicians can get lost when they try new ideas. “But most of the time it works,” he said.

Taking those chances is essential to being a jazz player, Eschete said. “The idea is to play what’s in your heart and in your brain simultaneously,” he said. It requires “an effort to play from inside yourself rather than a pattern that you already know.

“Joe’s the same way, and so when we get together we head in that direction real quick. We’ll trade four or eight-bar phrases, and sometimes we’ll have the bass and drums drop out and it will be just the two of us,” he said with a moderate accent that bespeaks his Cajun heritage--part Southern drawl and part Louisiana French.

Eschete feels he’s always been a jazz musician, even as a kid.

“My older brother and sister used to play show tunes, like from ‘West Side Story,’ and I was attracted to music on TV like the Henry Mancini score for ‘Peter Gunn,’ ” he recalled. “So even before I started playing, or heard jazz records, I liked the more complex songs with interesting harmonies and melodies,” the stuff that makes up the inner workings of most mainstream jazz.

Eschete got his first guitar at 14, bought half with money he’d earned cutting lawns, and half from his father’s generosity. Then at 15, he upgraded to a Gibson electric guitar, and started working, playing rock ‘n’ roll for dances.

“But even then, I knew that rock was (only) music to make a living by,” Eschete said.

He heard jazz for the first time in a record store in Houma, a town with a population of about 30,000 that is 58 miles southwest of New Orleans. “It was a version of ‘Days of Wine and Roses,’ by guitarist Howard Roberts, and it kind of just sucked me up to the speaker,” he said. Roberts, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, B.B. King and Jimmy Reed were among Eschete’s early idols.

At 17, Eschete was an ardent jazz lover, and at 18, he led a trio that included organ and drums. He studied music at Loyola University of the South in New Orleans, then embarked on a full-time career in music. He came to Southern California with singers Freddie Bell and Roberta Lynn, working at the In Place in Newport Beach for almost a year. He liked the area, and decided to stay.

These days, he’s pretty much a stay-at-home guy. Offered a chance to tour the world with pianist Harris and his band last year, a job that paid extremely well, Eschete turned it down.

“My son Ron is 10, and I want to see him grow up,” he said. “Hey, money doesn’t mean that much to me. I got into music to make music, and that’s my whole thing--playing and studying.”

* Guitarists Ron Eschete and Joe DiOrio and bassist Luther Hughes play Thursday at 9:45 p.m. at El Matador, 16903 Huntington Beach. Admission: free. Information: (714) 846-5337.