Building on the Sounds From His Boyhood : Jazz: Gene Harris’ renowned career began by trying to imitate piano melodies he heard at a neighbor’s.

Even before Gene Harris entered kindergarten, he’d been drawn into the world of jazz. Born in Benton Harbor, Mich., he spent his earliest years in his family’s apartment above the home of a local musician. Remembering those days recently, he explained the fascination he had with the sounds that bubbled up from downstairs.

“Our neighbor was a trumpet player and would bring his band in to rehearse every day,” Harris recalled on the phone from Boise, Ida., where he lives now. “I would go down there and listen to them and try to imitate what they did on the piano. I was 4 years old.”

The trumpet player, Charles Metcalf, became the young initiate’s mentor, guiding him through the basics on the keyboard. Harris also started listening to recordings by pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons and started adopting their boogie-woogie style as his own. When the family moved from the building, Metcalf gave his piano to the Harrises so Gene could continue his training.

“That’s how it all started,” marveled Harris, 60, whose quartet will play tonight at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. “When you’re that young, everything comes easily, and before long I could knock the keys off the thing.”

By the time he was 14, Harris had his own radio program in Benton Harbor. Listeners would call in every Saturday, and he would play their requests, an experience that helped develop his considerable versatility.

From these modest beginnings, he has risen to become one of the best-known names in jazz, not only in the United States but in Europe, Asia and Australia. The public at large first noticed him with the Three Sounds, a blues-and-boogie-minded trio with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Bill Dowdy that started in 1956 and continued well into the ‘60s. The sound Harris has developed over the years--richly chordal, bracingly rhythmic, strongly colored with blues and gospel touches--is easily identified.

“I’ve worked with some great pianists,” says bassist Luther Hughes, an associate of Harris’ since 1971 and a longtime member of the quartet, “but none who can reach out and get the audience in the palm of his hand and work them like a big piece of putty the way Gene does. He’s a master at communicating with the audience through the keyboard.”

Harris also communicates well through his recordings. His latest release with the quartet, “A Little Piece of Heaven” (Concord), recorded live this summer at the Ste. Chapelle Winery near Boise, has just entered Billboard’s jazz albums chart at No. 22 with a bullet, which usually portends even better sales.

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Harris seldom plays alone but also released a disc on Concord’s “Live at Maybeck Recital Hall” series of solo piano performances this year. “I don’t have time to play solo usually, but the company twisted my arm to do it,” he said with a chuckle. “And I’ve been surprised at the response.”

His rendition of “My Funny Valentine” from the recording was used on the soundtrack to the recent Alec Baldwin-Nicole Kidman film “Malice.”

His quartet circled the country this year (with a special stop in Benton Harbor) and traveled to Japan. To that, add Harris’ role as leader of the Phillip Morris Superband, an 18-piece all-star orchestra that toured the world in 1989 and again in 1990 with such exotic stops as Cairo, Casablanca, Istanbul, Ankara, Seoul and Taiwan, and you’ve got yourself one well-traveled musician.

So it may come as a surprise that Harris is a committed homebody. “I have a wonderful life in Idaho and try to travel as little as possible. My theory is to make a lot of money so I can spend more time at home,” he said with a laugh. It may seem an out-of-the-way location for an active jazz musician, but “the people here” make up for that, he said. “They’re so nice.”

Indeed, it was there that he met and married his wife, Jean. Harris moved to Boise in 1977. “I could tell a long story about how I ended up in Boise,” he said, “but it doesn’t really mean anything. I’d been living in California and just needed to get away and decide what to do with my career. And I found this nice community in which to live.”

He has remained a frequent visitor to California, as a fixture with bassist Ray Brown’s trio in the ‘80s as well as with his own groups. Brown also is a member of the Superband, along with saxophonists Ralph Moore and Plas Johnson, trumpeter Harry (Sweets) Edison and singer Ernie Andrews.

Formed in 1988, the Superband (which released two albums, “Live at Town Hall” and “World Tour 1990”) is on hold, Harris said. “We haven’t abandoned it, but with the economy the way it is, we have to wait a little. It takes a lot of money to bring together the kind of musicians we had and send them off around the world.”

As its name indicates, the Phillip Morris Superband is an example of corporate sponsorship--something Harris supports wholeheartedly.

“I’d like to see other bands get with other corporations and follow in our footsteps,” he said. “If they’re going to give money to all the other arts--ballets, classical music--there’s no reason they can’t sponsor big jazz bands on world tours and take jazz to all the different countries that are beginning to become a part of the world community. It’s a great link for the U.S. with these countries, having jazz do the talking. There are no language barriers when it comes to music.”

The quartet has more than taken up the slack left by the Superband’s inactivity. Harris says he could make more money with a traditional piano trio but has chosen to include guitarist Ron Eschete. “I was playing years ago in Huntington Beach at Hungry Joe’s and was using Ronnie down there. The group swung so hard and played so well together that when the time came, I wanted to put that sound back together. I wanted the feeling that Ron gives to the music when he plays.”

The quartet’s three albums on Concord give an idea of what will be heard at OCC: standards, the occasional original and, now and then, something unexpected. For example, Harris had been known, back in the old days, to take up the stately theme of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and to develop it in grand style until it became a jump-and-shout gospel piece--the kind of number that would make even the least patriotic stand up and salute.

* The Gene Harris Quartet with guitarist Ron Eschete, bassist Luther Hughes and drummer Paul Humphrey plays tonight at 8 at the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. $7-$12. (714) 432-5880.