Dedicated to Jazz : Pianist James Williams will debut at Wheeler Hot Springs in a trio with drummer Billy Higgins and bassist Richard Reid.

On opening night of the Monterey Jazz Festival in September, the sight on stage was a strange one. The sound: weirdly, perfectly natural.

There, side-by-side as in a showroom, was a row of four gleaming grand pianos, their keys being finessed by Mulgrew Miller, Geoff Keezer, Donald Brown, Harold Mabern Jr. and their fearless leader, James Williams. The audience, after a collective double take, gave a hearty welcome to Williams’ Contemporary Piano Ensemble as it took a refreshingly new approach to straight-ahead material.

Beyond the piano connection, there is a hometown fire brewing in this group, in which all but Keezer hails from Memphis, a breeding ground for good jazz as much as it has been for rock ‘n’ roll and R&B.; The group has an album out, “Key Players,” on DIW/Columbia. Generally, Williams has kept to the tried-and-true route of mainstream jazz tradition.

But taking the easy, expected route isn’t always of interest to Williams. The pianist’s 1992 major release as a leader, “James Williams Meets the Saxophone Masters” (DIW/Columbia), gave over the spotlight to a three-man front line of saxophonists Joe Henderson, Billy Pierce and George Coleman (another Memphis resident made good).

Sunday, in what promises to be a solid evening of piano trio jazz, Williams will make his first appearance at Wheeler Hot Springs, joined by the formidable, congenial drummer Billy Higgins and bassist Richard Reid.

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Even if his name has yet to achieve massive marquee power, James Williams may now be considered to have gone through the proper steps and amassed the proper credits to become one of those pillars in the jazz world. Born in 1951, Williams spent four years with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in the ‘70s. He has also worked with Joe Henderson, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Farmer, Benny Carter, Sonny Stitt and Tal Farlow, with whom he recorded a few albums on Concord. He also has a number of albums under his own name.

That discography will soon include the forthcoming “Talkin’ Trash,” featuring trumpet titan Clark Terry, with Williams doubling on piano and organ. Of that project, Williams noted, “I wanted to do a record that wasn’t overly serious. Even though the music is serious, we’re aren’t taking ourselves too seriously. I think we sometimes get away from the humor in this music. I’m trying to do what I call ‘putting the jazz back in jazz.’ ”

Later this year, Williams will release the first recording of his latest group, the Intensive Care Unit, a jazz-meets-gospel aggregate that includes two vocalists. What’s unusual for Williams is being usual.

Williams spoke last week from Anaheim, where the annual International Assn. of Jazz Educators convention took place. He said, laughing, “I thought it would be a good excuse to get out to the West Coast and get some nice weather. How ‘bout that? I could get this in New York.”

Thinking about the different projects you’ve done, you have a flair for putting together unusual instrumentation, such as your new gospel-jazz group. It’s true also of your Contemporary Piano Ensemble.

I guess I can’t satisfy myself enough with my own piano playing. I had to bring three or four more with me (laughs).

I like the different aspects and facets of jazz. When I started playing piano as a teen-ager, I was mostly involved in playing blues and spirituals and things like that. So that’s very much a part of what I do. I think that’s one reason I’ve come full circle. Those are the true roots of jazz.

I like to find other means of expression. We all have different facets to our personalities. I have different facets to my musical personality, as well.

Have you thought about what your being from Memphis imparted on your musical identity? Maybe if you’d come from another city, you wouldn’t have been so steeped in blues and gospel, for instance.

Perhaps not. Shortly after I started taking piano lessons, my late mom had such wisdom and vision about things, she suggested to my piano teacher, “‘I’d be interested in James learning a few hymns and religious music.”

Luckily, this lady was not only well-versed in the European tradition of teaching, but she was an excellent gospel organist. She set the stage for what I’m doing now, because that taught me the first stages of improvising.

We would take the last 15 minutes of the lesson and improvise on “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” or “Blessed Assurance” or whatever, and we would play through it in the style of a Bach chorale or something. Then she would show me how to embellish it, in order to get an idea of how to play it in a gospel style.

Little did I know that that was the first step of my improvisational education.

Do you think that jazz, in the ranks of music, sits somewhere between classical music and gospel?

Many people think of jazz as a classical version of the spirituals. I don’t know if I would categorize it so solidly as that, because I see there being a trinity between spirituals, blues and jazz. At various times, one leads the other.

The pianist Phineas Newborn was one of the guiding lights of the Memphis jazz circle. Did you actually study with him?

No, I wish I had. I couldn’t get Phineas to teach. What I’d do is go to his house and get him to play something for me. He was very accessible, but he didn’t teach.

We all look at him as a spiritual musical father for us, because he showed us the possibilities. We never heard Bud (Powell) or (Thelonious) Monk play in person. It’s one thing to have a mythical image of these people, but to see and hear it done right there on your own piano, you think “Hey, this can really be done.”

What is your background playing with Richard Reid and Billy Higgins?

They played with a group I had seven years ago called Progress Report. As a matter of fact, I also had Billy Pierce and a guitar player nobody had heard of, named Kevin Eubanks. I brought him out to the West Coast for the first time. Little did I know . . . now, he could bring me out here.

Ten years ago, Billy played on a trio record I did, called the “Arioso Touch.” Actually, he sat in with the Jazz Messengers at the Concerts by the Sea when I was out here with Art (Blakey).

Do you have a special rapport with him?

Very much so. I try not to let too much time go by without speaking to him. Of course, he’s back East all the time, with Cedar Walton or other things he’s involved with. He has a unique kind of spirit.

Now that there is no Art Blakey, you look to Billy and Elvin Jones and Tony Williams and people like that to guide us, from a drum perspective. Billy is about pure music. There’s nothing academic about his playing and thoughts. He’s about pure expression and communication.

I’m trying to get to that kind of authenticity more and more. One of the reasons I come down to the Jazz Educators convention and things like this is that sometimes there is too much emphasis placed on method and not on the music. It’s up to us as the artists, with one foot in the educational arena, to monitor that.

* WHO: James Williams, in a trio with Richard Reid and Billy Higgins, will perform a dinner concert.

* WHEN: Dinner is at 5:30 p.m. Sunday and the concert is at 7:30.

* WHERE: Wheeler Hot Springs, 16825 Maricopa Highway, Ojai.

* HOW MUCH: $50, including a prix fixe meal.

* CALL: 646-8131.