WESTSIDE / VALLEY : Pianist Gives Melodies a Bit of Jazz and Pizazz

John Beasley, wearing a black silk short-sleeve shirt, light blue jeans and dark-green Converse low-top tennies, sits at the grand piano in an auditorium at Santa Monica College on a recent Friday, playing a concert for about 400 jazz appreciation students.

The pianist--grimacing as he plays, his feet dancing under the keyboard--offers chords that splash like stones breaking the still surface of a lake and lines that dart like Michael Jordan heading toward the key for a slam dunk. He’s leading a quintet featuring “Tonight Show” trumpeter Sal Marquez, “Arsenio Hall Show” bassist John B. Williams, drum wizard Ralph Penland and saxophonist Keith Fidmont through an expressive version of Jimmy Heath’s ‘60s jazz standard “Gingerbread Boy.”

The number ends. Beasley gets up from the piano, approaches the microphone, and addresses his audience. “Jazz is like your first shot of tequila,” Beasley says with a smile. A day’s growth of beard, much darker than his short, light-brown hair, is apparent on his fair skin. “You kind of have to develop a taste for it. So keep on trying it.”

The 34-year-old Beasley, who plays Tuesday at the Club Brasserie in the Bel Age Hotel in West Hollywood, knows what he’s talking about. Jazz has been in his life probably from the day he came home from the hospital in Shreveport, La. His father, Rule, and his mother, Lida, are both musicians--they just retired from teaching positions at Santa Monica College. Rule played jazz piano in clubs in Shreveport, La., and in Denton, Tex., where the Beasleys moved a few years later, and taught jazz improvisation at the renowned music school, North Texas State University.

“I grew up with jazz all around,” John Beasley said. “The first records that really got to me were Bobby Timmons’ ‘Soultime’ and Jimmy Smith’s ‘Midnight Special.’ I was about 8 or 9.

“And I can remember my dad taking me to a dingy club in Dallas to hear Red Garland when I was 12 or 13,” Beasley said, talking about the pianist who achieved fame for his work with Miles Davis’ mid-’50s quintet that included saxophonist John Coltrane and drummer Philly Joe Jones.

Beasley not only heard jazz, he played it, starting at 14. And he’s had a decade and a half in the field, appearing with trumpeters Davis--for a year in 1989--and Freddie Hubbard; bassists John Patitucci and Stanley Clarke, and singer Michael Franks. He’s also recorded two solo albums--1992’s “Cauldron,” and the soon-to-be-released “A Change of Heart,” both on Windham Hill Jazz records.

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The two albums reveal the breadth of Beasley’s jazz style. Some numbers on “Cauldron” find the pianist dropping in alluring, bluesy phrases over finger-popping rhythms that have an African derivation.

On “A Change of Heart,” Beasley utilizes reed man Bob Sheppard on bass clarinet in selections that recall the earthiness of tunes recorded by Herbie Hancock, one of Beasley’s idols. Other tracks, such as Thelonious Monk’s “Skippy”--played with a New Orleans’ Second Line rhythmic babble--spotlight piano, bass and percussion. Both albums crackle with ethnic rhythmic vitality provided by percussionists Bill Summers and Darryl Munyungo Jackson.

Beasley, who wrote almost all the material on both albums, described the differences between the projects. “I like ‘Cauldron’ because the tunes are melodic; there’s room for dense harmony and rhythm and yet they don’t sound clinical,” Beasley said. “But there wasn’t a lot of room for me to play on that record. Maybe that was a lack of confidence, maybe that I had surrounded myself with so many strong players. On ‘A Change of Heart,’ I pursued the direction I had established with my first record, using the same musicians, but I open it up a lot more, play a lot more. Some tracks are just me and rhythm.”

Another facet of Beasley’s artistry comes to the forefront when he makes his infrequent trio dates, as he will on Tuesday, working with bassist Williams and a drummer. There the pianist likes to play jazz standards or originals, and really “stretch out”--a phrase musicians use loosely to mean not only taking lengthy solos, but also to experiment within given musical forms.

Williams, who has played with the pianist in his own Expectations band and with Hubbard, particularly enjoys this aspect of Beasley’s approach.

“John’s not afraid to take chances,” said Williams backstage during an intermission at the Friday concert. “He likes to open the music up, always likes to do stuff that’s challenging. That’s what jazz is.”

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Beasley, long an exponent of the contemporary jazz piano styles of Hancock, Keith Jarrett and McCoy Tyner, has of late been researching some of the music’s earlier masters, among them the wondrous pianist Bud Powell, who developed the progenitor of bebop. Copying Powell’s solos off records has widened Beasley’s scope, he said.

“Working with Bud is giving me more vocabulary under my fingers,” he said. “It makes me more fluid on the up-tempo numbers.”

Like so many jazz musicians, Beasley doesn’t make his living at his art. So between engagements and tours with people such as bassist Patitucci, he’s a studio musician who plays on jingles and film soundtracks. But he’d much rather be out there on the road.

“I really want to go out and play, but not in town,” he said. “It’s such a groove playing night after night. You get so strong, get a flow going. It makes you feel good about yourself.”

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John Beasley’s trio performs 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesday at Club Brasserie, Bel Age Hotel, 1020 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood. No cover, no minimum. (310) 854-1111.