An Ideal Outing for a Ranier Day : Jazz review: In his Kikuya appearance--the improvisational pianist’s first public performance in some years--he’s reunited with old partners.

After spending most of the last 15 years tucked away in film, TV and recording studios, pianist Tom Ranier has decided he needs more balance in his life and is going to devote more time to performing.

Bravo.

As fans of Ranier’s have long known, and as he demonstrated again on Thursday at Restaurant Kikuya, he’s one of Southern California’s top jazz improvisers, a musician both technically resplendent and emotionally open.

He works with an increasingly personal style that reveals his reverence for Oscar Peterson’s flash and bluesiness, Bud Powell’s sumptuous line play--at once intricate and beautiful--and Bill Evans’ chordal brilliance. For too long has Ranier been one of the jazz community’s best-kept secrets.

Before a full and enthusiastic house at Kikuya, the Brea resident was reunited with two former partners: guitarist Ron Eschete and bassist Luther Hughes. They worked together in the middle to late ‘70s at now-defunct Hungry Joe’s in Huntington Beach as part of vibist Dave Pike’s quintet, with whom they also recorded three albums for Muse Records, of which, “Times Out of Mind,” has been reissued on CD.

The three haven’t performed together much since their days with Pike, though you wouldn’t have known that from the way they interacted Thursday. For instance, there was the complicated, classical-like introduction to “You Look Good to Me,” which Ranier and Eschete had not played in 18 years, and which, performing a cappella, they brought off all but flawlessly.

Aided by the deft drum work of Carl Burnett, Ranier and Eschete fit hand-in-glove, accompanying each other’s improvisations with statements that mirrored just-played lines, or dropping in fresh thoughts that sparked new solo directions.

On several tunes, among them “You Look Good,” they traded eight- and four-bar solo passages. Their empathy was uncanny as they each at times played what the other had just delivered, moving one note here or there to give the phrase a different sheen.

Hughes was the perfect complement to these comings and goings. His fat, resilient tone buttressed the proceedings and gave his partners a swinging harmonic platform. Hughes’ soloing was stunning--he has become one of jazz’s finest bass improvisers--and was highlighted by his exquisite exposition on “Yours Is My Heart Alone,” where he concocted stunning be-bop-shaded lines with a saxophonist’s agility.

Ranier began with the standard “Autumn Leaves,” taken at an easy gait, segued to the listener-friendly “You Look Good,” then offered Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple From the Apple.” Next he and his partners backed singer Jack Wood, who was in particularly fine form, offering energized versions of “Old Devil Moon,” “ ‘S Wonderful” and Bobby Troup’s blues from the late ‘40s, “Baby, Baby All the Time.”

While the pianist’s solos were hardly the same on each number, he employed a similar improvisational approach to each tune. He started with relaxed, simply stated ideas that had a nice rhythmic bounce. As these flowed, he would contrast them with whizzing be-bop lines that twisted and turned like a cat chasing its tail. Blues tinges, via nicely placed chordal patterns, were dropped in to shift focus, and now and then he dashed off impressive parallel octave lines in both hands simultaneously.

On two numbers--the speedy “Scrapple” and “If I Should Lose You”--Ranier displayed his remarkable facility and imagination on clarinet, sounding like a mature performer on the difficult-to-play ebony instrument, his complex-then-not-so-tough ideas issuing smoothly one after the other.

*

Clarinet was Chicago-native Ranier’s second instrument after the piano; he picked it up at age 12.

“My father was a clarinet player, and he was my teacher, so it was his Benny Goodman records that drew me to jazz in the first place,” said Ranier in an interview earlier in the week. “Even though I had a classical background on piano, I always wanted to play jazz.”

Ranier moved to Orange County with his family when he was 6 and grew up in Garden Grove, where he graduated from Santiago High School. He attended Cal State Fullerton, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in composition.

The keyboardist cites the late composer-arranger Jack Daugherty as a seminal influence.

“I studied with him in high school, and that was fantastic,” Ranier said. “He took me through not only the classical, legitimate approach to orchestrating,” but also got Ranier started in jazz writing.

Slowly, surely, while establishing a reputation as a solid jazzman with performances with Pike, sax man Pete Christlieb and a band he led with drummer Sherman Ferguson and bassist John Heard, Ranier edged his way into the Southern California studio scene.

There he has thrived, playing recently for such film scores as “Forrest Gump” and TV shows including “Deadly Games.” But these days, he’s more interested in reactivating his jazz life.

“I feel I have been given a gift, and I want to develop that,” he said. “I don’t know where it will go, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that I go ahead and do it.”