Pianist Bobby Lyle Performs at Valley College Concert

Pianist Bobby Lyle doesn’t like to be pigeonholed.

His first five solo projects--three on Capitol Records, the other two for Atlantic--fell more or less under the “jazz/funk” rubric. Then he released “Pianomagic,” an album that spotlighted him performing unaccompanied at the grand piano. Next week, he heads into the studio for his next Atlantic sessions, which will focus on Brazilian and Caribbean rhythms and melodies, over which, he said, “I’ll do my jazz thing.”

When Lyle performs live--as he does Sunday, along with pianist Billy Mitchell and singer Greg Walker, at a free concert at Valley College that’s part of the Playboy Jazz Festival--he mixes all these elements together.

“I play stuff out of my albums--some solo, some straight-ahead jazz, some crossover, or whatever they call it,” Inglewood resident Lyle said.

The breadth of music that he covers renders artistic labels meaningless to the musician. “So many people want to slot you somewhere, but that’s far too limiting. I leave the labels to others.

“I’m like a person who makes films. Sometimes I make comedies, sometimes I make dramas. I mix things up because I have all these dimensions in my musical personality,” he said.

“Pianomagic,” which follows two group efforts for Atlantic--”Ivory Dreams” and “The Journey”--is perhaps typical of the musical mood swings of Lyle. Here the pianist tackles such jazz evergreens as Bill Evans’ “Waltz for Debbie” and Miles Davis’ “So What” along with originals and a few classic pop standards, among them Ray Noble’s “The Very Thought of You.”

The album was definitely a change in direction, but Lyle--who has been playing the piano since he was growing up in Memphis and who made his professional debut at a Minneapolis club at age 16--felt the time was right to expose this powerful facet of his artistry.

“I have been working on the unaccompanied style since I was a teen-ager, pretending I’m playing without bass, without drums,” said Lyle. “Then when I saw that other pianists such as McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett were doing it, that further fueled my interest. This album, which I sort of see as something in between my group albums, expresses a special part of my musical self.”

Lyle said that performing without backup places a number of demands on a musician that one doesn’t encounter working with a band. “With a trio or small combo, you can almost go on cruise control,” he said. “But with solo, you constantly have to be working to make it interesting. The challenges are to bring out the orchestral qualities of the instrument, to find its inside colors.”

Lyle emphasized that while playing solo was special, it didn’t take the place of working with a group, as he will Sunday, where he’ll be joined by saxophonist James Perkins, guitarist Dwight Sills, bassist Larry Kimpel and drummer Ndugu Chancler.

“With a band, the whole thing is about interplay and bouncing off the others,” Lyle said. “Some really interesting things happen in that context, whether you are soloing or not.”

“Bobby came highly recommended by Ricky Tatum,” general manager of radio station KACE, who suggested the artists on this program, said Darlene Chan, associate producer of the Playboy Jazz Festival and producer of this concert. “And I like him too.”

Lyle, whose rich career has included everything from serving as Bette Midler’s musical director to producing albums for saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, said he looked forward to Sunday’s performance, particularly in the wake of the riots that rocked Los Angeles.

“Music has a healing quality that people need to offset the negative things that are happening,” he said. “Plus when you play outdoors, there’s that sense of freedom, of communing with nature while your ears are being treated.”

Bobby Lyle, Billy Mitchell and Greg Walker perform from 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday at the Monarch Quad, Valley College, 5800 Fulton Ave., Van Nuys. Free. Information: (310) 450-9040.