Lady Luck a Cousin to Composer’s ‘Three Graces’ : Jazz: Jeff Beal credits the success of his new album to good fortune mingled with talent and opportunity. He plays Saturday at Randell’s in Santa Ana.

Trumpeter-composer Jeff Beal can’t believe his good fortune. With his latest album, “Three Graces,” nudging its way up Billboard’s jazz chart and with offers coming in for him to score for films and other media, the 30-year-old musician seems destined for great things.

“I know so many musicians who’ve never even gotten a chance to make a record,” said Beal, who has made four for two labels. He plays Randell’s in Santa Ana on Saturday. “Sure, I’ve worked hard for it. But I think the music business is a combination of luck and talent and opportunity. And so far, I’ve had the right combination.”

Blind chance, Beal said, led him to his instrument.

“I was in the fourth grade and attended one of the music assemblies with my dad and just pointed at the trumpet and said, ‘That’s what I want to play.’ Little did I know I’d decided my fate for the rest of my life.”

His grandmother contributed to the budding trumpeter’s career by giving him copies of Miles Davis’ “Sketches Of Spain” and “Live At the Blackhawk” albums.

“It was a very hip gift, but I didn’t really know its significance at first,” Beal said. Still, Davis, along with trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw, were to have a profound influence on his style.

But it wasn’t a trumpet player who initiated his obsession with jazz. “I first got excited about Chick Corea’s Return to Forever bands in the ‘70s,” he said, “both the electric version and the later, more orchestral stuff with (vocalist) Gayle Moran. I’ve always been interested in compositional form and Chick’s music really caught my ear. It got me excited about being a synthesist, combining different styles of music and making something out of them.”

Before long, Beal was transcribing trumpet solos from the late Woody Shaw and seeking out other voices on the instrument.

“(European trumpeter) Kenny Wheeler had a big influence on me, especially on the fluegelhorn. Like Wheeler, I definitely have a classical approach to the trumpet in the way I want to sound, as opposed to a more traditional jazz approach with that blatty sound and extroverted, flamboyant style. I’ve always heard the trumpet more as a vocalist and that’s what I like about Wheeler. Miles also approached the trumpet with a vocal style.”

A Bay Area native and a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., Beal received 11 student awards from Down Beat magazine for his composing and trumpet work.

He spent several of years in New York City before becoming disillusioned with the music business there. But it was there he was signed to Antilles, an arrangement that resulted in his first albums, “Liberation,” and “Perpetual Motion.”

Now based in Los Angeles, Beal pursues two careers; one as composer, the other as jazz trumpeter.

“Composing is at least half my entire life,” said Beal. “But performing is an important facet of composing. I find that when you go out and play there are certain things that happen creatively that aren’t expressed when you’re writing. And it’s also important when you’re recording a new album to try the material on a live audience and see how it goes over, to really let it gel.”

That approach, Beal said, is central to “Three Graces.”

“We wanted to get that live, concert sound,” he said. “The band hadn’t played a lot together as a unit before we recorded, but we had all worked together in our roles as L.A. jazz guys. And there’s definitely a simpatico feeling that develops when you get out and play together. But except for a few live dates, we didn’t rehearse. And that was great, the material felt fresh to us.

“From an improvising standpoint, your instinct, your first ideas are the most potent creatively. If you do things too many times, they become studied, you shift your operation from the unconscious part of your head to the conscious part. Sometimes, when I hear someone play a solo, I can hear them thinking.

“That’s something I always strive for: a free, in-the-moment creativity, not really knowing what you’re going to do, but really letting the music unfold. It’s also a communal thing; you’re reacting to what everybody else is doing, like a conversation. That’s another reason the first time something is played it has extra spark.”

Currently, Beal is working on the soundtrack to the forthcoming film “Ring Of Steel.” He has also written music for a handful of independent films and reality television shows, including “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Eyewitness Video.”

Nor has he ignored more serious composing. He’s finishing a piece entitled “Alternate Route” for trumpet and orchestra and “Interchange For String Quartet and Orchestra,” all to be performed by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in 1994. The Turtle Island String Quartet will join the Berkeley orchestra for “Interchange.”

If that isn’t enough, Beal exchanged his trumpet for piano temporarily to record an album featuring his compositions for solo piano. But his biggest thrill at the moment is watching his “Three Graces” album move up the charts.

“Charting opens up a lot of doors, helps you do more things, like tour and book more gigs. It all builds on itself.”

* Jeff Beal, with guitarist Steve Cardenas, bassist Dave Carpenter and drummer Kendall Kay, plays Saturday at 8 at Randell’s, 3 Hutton Centre Drive, Santa Ana. No cover. (714) 556-7700.