Riding High on Double Wave of Success : Pop Music: New album is latest triumph for San Diego guitarist Kiko Cibrian, also a sideman for Mexican pop star.

The night that would change Kiko Cibrian’s life began like many others.

It was in May, 1990. The San Diego guitarist and his band, True Stories, were playing Humphrey’s, the Shelter Island restaurant known as a hot spot for light jazz.

Mexican pop star Luis Miguel was in town to perform at the Sports Arena. His manager stopped by Humphrey’s and was knocked out by Cibrian’s fret work. A few weeks later, Cibrian found himself playing arena shows in front of throngs of screaming teen-age girls as a member of Miguel’s band.

Tijuana-born Cibrian, 33, has been Miguel’s guitarist ever since, and his role has expanded to include composing and arranging some of Miguel’s music. Among Mexican music industry executives, Cibrian has a rising reputation. He recently produced a debut album by Mexican pop singer Christian that is riding high on Mexican pop charts.

But even as he prepares to record with Miguel, and to tour South America with the singer in November and December, Cibrian prefers not to dwell on his life as a sidekick to the Mexican Michael Jackson.

Cibrian has his own music to think about. During a phone interview earlier this week from a Los Angeles hotel where he was staying while working on Miguel’s next recording, Cibrian kept steering the discussion back to his music.

He made an auspicious recording debut with the release last month of “Kiko,” a 10-song collection that includes eight of his original tunes. Already, KIFM (98.1), the San Diego light jazz station, is playing five of the songs. And this week, Cibrian’s label, Coronado-based Silver Strand Records, began mailing copies of “Kiko” to 420 radio stations across the country, expecting great things.

“I know it’s gonna take off,” said Fred Moore, one of the owners of Silver Strand. “It’s a great album. The public’s loving it. They’re already buying it at Tower and Sam Goody’s in San Diego.”

Cibrian’s debut is loaded with qualities pop jazz radio stations love. The songs are user-friendly, featuring simple romantic melodies and gentle finger-popping rhythms. Cibrian’s smooth, fluid guitar takes center stage against a lush, seamlessly blended backdrop of sounds, including guest flourishes by saxophonist Brandon Fields and a host of top San Diego players including Duncan Moore, Kevin Hennessey and Tommy Aros.

But Cibrian also achieves what few of his pop jazz peers have: complex, technically demanding solos that are still lyrical enough to touch middle-of-the-road listeners.

The bright, speedy guitar lines he invents bring to mind the challenging yet emotionally deep improvisations of top jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, though Cibrian does not consider himself purely a jazz player--try “pop-jazz” or “pop-R&B;,” he suggests.

Still, Cibrian’s roots are in jazz. His awakening as a guitarist came between 1985 and 1987, he says, when he studied in San Diego with guitarist Hal Crook, now a teacher at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“I thought I was playing jazz, but really I wasn’t,” Cibrian said. “My fingers were just going through the motions. Hal is the one who set me straight. He opened my ears and showed me how to make a solo say something. I’m not talking about playing really fast. He gave me a voice. What you hear on the record, that’s what Hal taught me.”

Before he seriously studied jazz with Crook, Cibrian’s influences were broad. He grew up in Tijuana, where he was educated through high school. His father, Ignacio, played in mariachi bands.

“When I was 14, I started playing boleros, Mexican music, mariachi stuff,” Cibrian said.

“At 15, I discovered disco and rock ‘n’ roll--Tower of Power, Average White Band, Blood Sweat & Tears. A few years later I started playing with a band, and the saxophonist was a great jazz player who turned me on to Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass. I was, like, ‘Wow!’

“Then I heard George Benson for the first time and I just went, ‘Oh man, what is this?’ I used to own his records, and by the time a few months went by, they would turn white, I played them so much.

“I used to light candles to those guys, it almost got to that point, they were like saints to me.”

At 19, Cibrian still lived in Tijuana and had a career limited to local clubs.

“Then this guy came into a little club in T.J., heard me play and asked me if I wanted to go to Vegas,” Cibrian said. “Being from T.J., Vegas sounded like a big deal, whoa, Frank Sinatra and all.

“I ended up playing in a band called Santa Fe, doing a lot of showroom gigs, musical revues, not with big-name entertainers.

“The other guitar player from that band, Jerry Lopez, is with Tom Scott now, and the saxophonist is with Paula Abdul, but we were all kids back then.”

While in Nevada, Cibrian also sat in with the University of Las Vegas’ Big Band, keeping his jazz muscles in shape.

He returned to California in 1982 to take a job in a Disneyland band that accompanied dance performances.

In San Diego the following year, Cibrian joined the People Movers, a group that also included bassist Nathan East, now Eric Clapton’s bassist and a member of the all-star jazz group Fourplay.

Lured back by the prospect of steady income, Cibrian had a brief second fling with the Disneyland band in 1987 before joining Hollis Gentry’s Neon in San Diego.

Then Cibrian started True Stories--which he remembers as a “really smoking band”--but was hired by Miguel before the band could gain any momentum.

At the moment, Cibrian’s talents are being spread in many directions.

On the strength of “Kiko,” his solo career is picking up steam, but he’s too busy to support it with live dates anytime in the near future. Meanwhile, Miguel’s last release, “Romance,” sold well into the millions. Cibrian stands to make handsome royalties from the next, on which he will be a featured player.

But Cibrian says he doesn’t feel torn between the big crowds and financial security he enjoys with Miguel and his own solo career, which includes plans for a second recording next year.

“Playing with Luis changed my whole life,” said Cibrian, who bought a house on a Rancho Bernardo golf course with some of his earnings from Miguel. He lives with his wife, Victoria, and they expect their first baby, a girl, in October.

“Luis has been really generous with me. I never thought I could have a beautiful home, a beautiful wife, a family--a dog. I just thought, ‘Hey, I’m gonna eat cheeseburgers the rest of my life and play my guitar.’

“But Luis is also a great musician. He checks out everyone--Marvin Gaye, early Stevie Wonder, early Michael Jackson, Ray Charles. His style has a lot of depth. You hear him and you hear great music. I don’t want to put labels on any music, because on any day I’d love to play in a small jazz band or in front of 30,000 people with Luis, or do my records, or record with Luis. I’m just going to do music, you know?”