Garnering Audience Response : Techniques such as playing two saxes at once help musician connect with listeners.

Flip Phillips, the acclaimed tenor saxophonist who became a jazz star in the ‘40s and ‘50s with Jazz at the Philharmonic and Woody Herman’s big band, could play lyrically--and also get crowds of people on their feet with simpler, more rhythmic stylings. He always said, “If you want to make a dollar, you got to make the people holler.”

Garner Thomas follows that adage. In his shows, the saxophonist emphasizes audience response.

“I always try to create excitement in my solos,” said Thomas, 35, who leads his quartet tonight at Jax in Glendale.

“Audiences want to be entertained by good musicianship,” he said. “They want to hear something that’s unusually good, and that’s creative.”

One way Thomas connects with his listeners is by being versatile, playing a variety of music from R & B to funk to be-bop.

“Sometimes I’ll tell the listeners, ‘We’re going to see how many styles we can play tonight,’ ” he said. The saxophonist’s repertoire includes anything from Miles Davis’ “Donna Lee” and John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.”

“I like the challenge of playing more than one thing,” he said. “I like be-bop, the speed of it, trying to see how melodic I can be at a ridiculously fast tempo. I like R & B, the feel of it, the way it makes you want to dance. And some jazz/fusion songs are set up for an instrumentalist to be really creative.”

Playing for audiences in a jazz format allows Thomas the opportunity to really grow as a musician, he said. “I can stretch, take chances, experiment, improve.”

Thomas augments his program with a couple of techniques that he said “give him an edge”: He plays two saxophones--an alto and a tenor--at the same time, and he uses circular breathing, which allows him to simultaneously breathe through his nose, store air in his lungs and mouth, and then expel that air into his instrument, creating a continuous sound. He can hold a single note for as long as he likes.

The saxophonist, inspired by the late Rahsaan Roland Kirk, began playing two horns simultaneously about a decade ago.

“I saw Roland playing three horns at once and thought it would be interesting,” he said. “Initially, the hardest thing was just holding the horns and making a good sound. Now I’m pretty fluent.” Thomas said he can play staccato, issuing short, biting notes by briefly tonguing each of the saxophone’s mouthpieces, and he can bend notes, making the notes slide from one tone to another.

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Thomas said he often offers the dual-horn routine to wake up listeners. “Like we do a dinner set, and that’s pretty quiet,” he said. “Then to get things going the next set, I’ll play the two horns. I need to shock the listeners, and once I get their attention, then I go on with the show.”

The horn man, who lives in Studio City, was born in Petersburg, Va., grew up in a musical family and began playing alto saxophone at the age of 8.

He found himself attracted to circular breathing in 1977, when he was studying music at Western Washington University in Bellingham. It has been a difficult technique to learn, Thomas said, but it has paid off in terms of audience appeal.

Latin/jazz violinist Susie Hansen, who has played with Thomas in a couple of ad-hoc all-star bands at the L. A. Garlic Festival, has witnessed these crowd reactions.

“The notes went on so long, and people loved it. They were cheering,” she said.

Thomas said there was one other way he gets his audience to respond: He talks to his fans.

“I learned a long time ago that if you take care of your audience, it takes care of you,” he said. “It wasn’t easy at first. I used to have such stage fright, my knees would shake when I played recitals as a teen-ager. But now I say hello to the listeners, I’m conversational. It’s one way you build up a following.”

Where and When What: Garner Thomas at Jax, 339 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Hours: 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. tonight. He returns Nov. 5 and 19. Price: No cover; no minimum. Call: (818) 500-1604.