Porcupine Pair Don’t Stick With the Norm : Jazz: Bill Cunliffe and Bernie Dresel inject improvisation into contemporary style. The duo performs tonight at Randell’s.

For most contemporary-jazz groups, the question of playing fusion or straight-ahead music is a sticky one. But not for Porcupine, the band co-led by keyboardist Bill Cunliffe and drummer Bernie Dresel.

In fact, Cunliffe and Dresel believe that their band--with its blend of electric and acoustic sounds, commercial and progressive approaches--brings together the best of both worlds.

“You’d call what we do contemporary jazz,” Cunliffe explained in a phone conversation during a rehearsal break at his home in Reseda, “but more out of the (guitarist Pat) Metheny or Yellowjackets mold.

“It definitely has a groove at times, but the writing is a lot more detailed, there’s a lot more improvisation than what you hear on the radio today,” he said. “Our music isn’t some environmental soundtrack, or static. It changes quite a bit.”

“Porcupine is more of a progressive-jazz group,” added Dresel, “than, say the Rippingtons”--for whom Dresel has played--”or Richard Elliot. Our music stretches further than that. It still hits the public in a commercial way, but we get away with as much that’s musical as we can inside that commercial aspect.”

Dresel, a busy session man who’s worked with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, pianist-composer Clare Fischer, singer Carl Anderson and keyboardist Keiko Matsui, says his percussive approach is different with Porcupine than it is when he’s backing other pop and fusion bands.

“It’s like the sticks are dancing over the drums rather than pounding grooves,” he said, “and there’s more interplay with the musicians.”

“Both of us feel that contemporary jazz has gotten a little stale,” Cunliffe said. “It’s tough to do those happy-face sambas with the same three chords all the time. Bernie and I wanted to be more freewheeling with Porcupine.”

Both men agree that the group’s second album, “Look, but Don’t Touch,” takes a significant step away from the commercial realm.

“The first one’s more out of the traditional adult-contemporary format. But the second album is more jazzy, with more improvisation,” Cunliffe said.

The two musicians met in 1979 at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. There, they recorded their first album together, “ ‘Bout Time,” in 1983.

After finishing their studies, Dresel moved to Los Angeles to pursue a studio career, while Cunliffe moved to Cincinnati to teach and play with visiting musicians including saxophonist Joe Henderson, drummer Art Blakey and even Frank Sinatra. He also went out on tour with the Buddy Rich band.

Cunliffe moved to L.A. in 1989 to pursue a studio career, but bigger things happened. That same year, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Piano competition, a prize that has catapulted other young musicians into record contracts. But not Cunliffe.

“I’m not sure I was in the best position to take advantage of the award living in L.A.” Cunliffe said. “But it did give me the encouragement to keep playing. When I first came here, I had no work, no prospects, nothing.”

Enter his old pal Dresel, who landed him the gig as second keyboardist in Keiko Matsui’s band. It was while they were with Matsui that they were given the opportunity to form Porcupine.

“We were on the bus one day and Kazu (Matsui, flutist, producer and husband of Keiko Matsui) came up and asked if I’d like to do a record,” Cunliffe said. “I’d actually begun work on a solo project, so I said I’d like to do a collaborative thing with Bernie.”

“I was more comfortable doing a project with Bill than by myself,” Dresel said. “I play in so many different styles that I had to wonder what a Bernie Dresel album would be like. I didn’t want it to be one of those ‘Look what I can do’ albums with all kinds of stuff on it. Our direction together is one aspect of the music that I enjoy.’

The name for the group came from Matsui. “Kazu has a way with words and a very droll sense of humor. ‘Why don’t you call the group Porcupine?’ he suggested. ‘They’re cute but unbelievably prickly.’ ”

Not surprisingly, both men express the highest regard for each other’s talents.

“Bernie and I discovered we were musically compatible back in Rochester,” Cunliffe said. “He’s very capable, an exacting, precise person who also puts a lot of spirit in his playing. He plays drums like an arranger, always looking at the overall picture.”

Of Cunliffe, Dresel said he is “very well respected and for good reason: he’s a very musical player. We might be the antithesis of each other. I come from a more commercial background, he comes from the die-hard jazz side of things. We’ve learned from each other.”

In celebrating the release of “Look, but Don’t Touch” tonight at Randell’s, the band will also include saxophonist Rob Lockhart (another Eastman alumnus), guitarist John Di Faria (who’s worked with the Miami Sound Machine) and bassist Bob Parr, who played on both Porcupine albums.

“A two-leader band is like a marriage,” Dresel said. “We have disagreements, but we also share in the joys of success.”

*Porcupine, with Bill Cunliffe and Bernie Dresel, plays tonight at 8 at Randell’s, 3 Hutton Centre Drive, Santa Ana. No cover. (714) 556-7700.