Guitarists Verheyen, Miller Find a Good Connection : * Jazz: Listening to each other has given them an instant camaraderie and chemistry that usually come from years of sharing bandstands. They’ll play together tonight at El Matador.

When guitarists Carl Verheyen and Mike Miller got together for an informal session at El Matador in Huntington Beach last month, they tore the joint up--musically speaking.

Their scintillating renditions of blues tunes and jazz standards--alternately hard-driving and provocative, and gritty and soothing--revealed the kind of camaraderie and chemistry that usually come from years of sharing bandstands. But before that night, Verheyen, 37, and Miller, 38, had played together just once--at a Musicians’ Institute seminar in Hollywood.

So what made that evening turn out so hot? R-E-S-P-E-C-T, said Verheyen, a man with a Jimi Hendrix-edge to his guitar sound.

“I like Mike’s style,” said Verheyen, in a recent phone interview from his home in Studio City. “He picks the not-so-obvious ideas, plays ideas that are off the wall. He turns corners in funny places. But he’s a complete musician. He’s fully baked.”

In a separate phoner from his home in Van Nuys, Miller said, “Carl’s playing impressed me the first time I heard him.”

Like so many modern instrumentalists, Miller and Verheyen traverse a multitude of genres, and Miller said stylistic diversity provided a starting point for a musical dialogue.

“We both love a wide variety of music, from jazz and rock to country and blues,” said Miller, an instrumentalist whose tone might be described as sweeter and rounder than Verheyen’s. “There’s no one music I’d want to do to the exclusion of any other.”

Another advantage the pair have is that listen well to one another. “Sometimes two guitars can clash, but if the guys really listen to each other, then it can be great,” Miller said.

Verheyen and Miller, plus bassist Luther Hughes and drummer John Ferraro--the same foursome that played El Matador in January--return to the club tonight.

And while the men once again won’t have rehearsed for the engagement, they have discussed tunes over the phone a few times and will be offering some originals, Miller said.

Both players earn the bulk of their incomes from working in Los Angeles recording studios, where they first met a few years ago. Verheyen “does a lot of TV,” he said, including sessions for “Cheers,” “The Young Riders” and “In the Heat of the Night.” Miller says he plays a lot of jingles, such as the Bo Jackson commercials for Nike, and makes his share of recordings, with bands from the Yellowjackets to violinist Doug Cameron.

Despite their busy schedules, Verheyen and Miller, who are both essentially self-taught, also try to play live as much as possible.

Verheyen, a native of Pasadena who calls himself “a sophisticated rock ‘n’ roller,” leads a trio with drummer Ferraro and bassist Dave Marotta. The band, a cross between a metal band and a jazz trio that plays everything from rockabilly to sizzling rock, is a spotlight for the leader, albeit a challenging one.

“I love the freedom, but musically I have to be in a lot of places at once,” he said. Verheyen, who also plays with singer Carl Anderson, performs with the trio two to three times a month. The group, featured on Verheyen’s “No Borders” album, appears March 7 at the Club Lingerie in Hollywood.

Miller, who hails from Sioux Falls, S.D., and who moved to Los Angeles in 1975, fronts a trio with drummer Tom Brechtlein, though it’s been inactive of late. “We used to work the Baked Potato (in North Hollywood) a lot,” said Miller.

When he does get out and play with his band, Miller offers mostly originals. “Some are just song songs, with pretty melodies, and others are more quirky, with weird time games, not (merely) to fake somebody out but to make the tunes interesting,” he said.

The world of rock has played an important part in each musician’s career.

Beginning in 1980, Miller spent 11 years working with singer Gino Vanelli and played on four of his albums before Vanelli replaced most of his band with machines. “It got so that the drummer and I were the only live musicians besides Gino, and the show was the same every night. It was very sterile,” said Miller.

Verheyen had a much more pleasant experience touring the world in 1986 as the lead guitarist with British rock band Supertramp. “I loved that,” he said. “It was pretty deep music, not just bubble-gum pop.”

When he was asked to return for another tour with Supertramp in 1988, Verheyen demurred, preferring to stick it out and establish himself in the studio-music world. He has, and consequently thinks it’s a great way to go. “Hey, it a good gig during a recession,” he said. With all the different potential employers, “you can’t get laid off by any one person.”

* Guitarists Carl Verheyen and Mike Miller play at 8:30 tonight at El Matador, 16809 Algonquin St., Huntington Beach. Admission: free. Information: (714) 846-5337.