Lanny Morgan Is Content ‘Just Playing Myself ‘ : Jazz: The veteran sax man, due at Maxwell’s tonight, says it took him a while to discover that he does best in his own style.

Lanny Morgan is a man who has come to terms with himself.

Although the alto sax man has been highly visible jazz soloist for more than three decades, he feels he is now doing his finest playing.

“I think I’m making better music than I ever have,” Morgan says. “Sure, we all have good days and bad days. But a few days ago I listened back to some of the things I did with Maynard Ferguson back in the ‘60s, and I really didn’t sound nearly as settled and together as I feel I am now.”

Morgan, who will appear tonight at Maxwell’s in Huntington Beach, is one of the Southland’s most active musicians. He has been a featured performer with Supersax for almost 20 years, and he frequently can be heard with the bands of Bill Berry, Bob Florence, Bill Holman and others.

Like most area jazz players, however, Morgan must work hard playing other styles to make his mortgage payments.

“It’s a drag, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “You just can’t survive playing jazz alone. It can be so tough, especially if you want to work with a small group. I’ve seen Clifford Jordan--and you know he’s a world-class jazz player--working in a room that was almost empty.”

“So I have to do a little bit of everything. Fortunately, I’ve reached the stage in my career where I can be a little picky, because there are some things I really don’t want to do.

“But I just played for Natalie Cole at the Pacific Amphitheatre. And I did Sinatra recently. Those are the fun dates. Then I occasionally work some ‘casuals’--parties, dances, things like that. And, of course, whatever studio work comes down the line.”

Morgan’s modest reference to “whatever studio work comes down the line” actually means countless recordings, film soundtracks and TV variety shows. In his spare time, he also teaches and performs at colleges, clinics and summer jazz camps, and he annually tours the United Kingdom with a British rhythm section.

“It’s true; I do all that stuff,” he says with a laugh. “But if I had my druthers, I’d like to just play jazz, period.”

Morgan, who is now 58, was born in Iowa but came to Los Angeles at age 10. He was around town for the blossoming of the West Coast cool movement of the ‘50s. But a decade spent gigging in New York and touring with the high-voltage Maynard Ferguson band in the ‘60s firmly established the aggressive be-bop style that has dominated his playing since his return to Los Angeles.

“I don’t know if I’m a down-and-out be-bopper,” Morgan said, “but that’s definitely where my roots are. To me, be-bop has never been an intellectual music. It’s a happy, swinging kind of music--like Dixieland was for another era.”

He is pleased to see the emergence of a new generation of young players--the Marsalises, the Harper brothers, Roy Hargrove, Christopher Hollyday, etc.--who agree with him about the charms of be-bop.

“That kind of music was sitting on the shelf for too long,” he said. “For a while, I was beginning to wonder if anybody was going to be around to carry it on.”

But Morgan is a long way from wanting to pass on his own musical torch. A new recording--he hasn’t made one of his own in more than 10 years--is in the works, and he has every intention of hanging in there, doing whatever it takes to keep the jazz fires burning.

“When I came back out here from New York,” Morgan said, “I was trying to be a little of everything--a John Coltrane and a Sonny Rollins and a Bird and a Sonny Stitt and Lee Konitz and everybody. It’s taken me a while to realize that my bag is me, what I do, what I am. And I feel much better, and probably sound a lot better, doing what I’m doing right now, which is just playing myself.”

Saxophonist Lanny Morgan and the Jim DeJulio Trio play tonight at 8, 9:30 and 11 p.m. at Maxwell’s, 317 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. $4, plus $7 food-drink minimum. (714) 536-2555.