Wilkie’s Energy Is ‘Boundless’

Newport Beach keyboardist Scott Wilkie’s blond good looks have given him something of an identity problem. More than one reviewer of his new album, “Boundless,” has said he looks like another handsome keyboardist, John Tesh.

It’s a connection that Wilkie, who appears in his own backyard Saturday as part of the Newport Beach Jazz Festival, wants to avoid.

Speaking from Coral Gables, Fla., where he was appearing earlier this week, Wilkie said he wants the world to know that though he may bear slight resemblance to the former host of “Entertainment Tonight,” they’re worlds apart musically.

“I’ve definitely heard the [Tesh] reference made, and I even have a friend who’s played with him. But we’re at different ends of the music industry,” Wilkie said. “We may share a similar demographic, but we do different things.

“I don’t have any negative feelings toward him or anyone else. I just don’t want people, when they hear a comparison like that, to have a knee-jerk reaction before they listen to my music. I want them to have an open mind and hear my music for what it is.”

Wilkie’s CD does offer more than subtle differences from the music of Tesh and similar artists. Released in February--on the day he and his wife Kellie’s first child, Claire, was born--the album emphasizes melody and takes on a harder musical edge than most of the performers lumped together as contemporary jazz. Among the guest artists are bassist John Patitucci, Rippingtons guitarist Russ Freeman and saxophonist Jeff Kashiwa.

“Frankly, I’ve been thrilled with the reviews and everything that’s been said,” Wilkie said. “I’m really happy to see the point being made [that ‘Boundless’ is not the usual smooth-jazz fare]. I didn’t want to come at the record with any grand scheme, other than just to make it the way I wanted it to sound.

“The popular direction in smooth jazz is to use programmed drums and sequencing that goes on and on. That’s great; I’ve done that so much in solo performance” in his former job putting on keyboard clinics.

“But I didn’t want to do that on record. For me, the intrigue comes when you use live players,” Wilkie said. “I’ve heard so many artists who, when you hear their record, you think, ‘Well, OK.’ Then you hear the same band live and you think, ‘Yeah, that’s really cool.’ That’s what I wanted to do: capture that live-band vibe.”

Wilkie has cultivated that live sound with his working band--bassist Nathan Brown, drummer David Owens and guitarist Matthew Van Doran--with gigs at Restaurant Kikuya, the Coach House and other locations after moving here in 1991 from the Midwest. He was born in Detroit and began playing piano when he was 6 but wasn’t completely enamored of music.

“I didn’t originally think that being a musician was the greatest thing in the world. I’d rather be outside playing than inside practicing.”

But at age 12 he saw a jazz piano trio, and his interest deepened.

“It was the first time I ever watched musicians up close, saw music in real life as it was happening with the piano running the show. I was fascinated by it.”

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When it was time for college, he enrolled at the University of Michigan as an architecture student, but an “overwhelming passion for music” sent him elsewhere.

“After two years, I gave up any chance of having a real corporate life and went to study music at Wayne State [Michigan].”

He graduated in 1991 and was touring with guitarist Earl Klugh when he was hired by the Roland Corp., maker of electronic keyboards, to serve as a clinician and demonstration artist.

Roland’s U.S. operation had headquarters in Southern California, offering him the perfect excuse to relocate. He left Roland in 1996, though he still does the occasional performance for them, to concentrate on his own music.

“I always saw myself on the West Coast,” he said. “There’s so much music here--it’s the focal point of the business and industry. And I’ve always dug the beach.”

Much of Wilkie’s album was recorded at his studio in Newport Beach, and he’s looking forward to doing a second, this time with only the members of his working band.

“Because there are so many incredible musicians in L.A., you’ll go see a band and it’s always a different combination because musicians are so busy here.

“I’m always playing with the same five guys, and I’m incredibly fortunate to have a band that’s passionate about my music,” he said. “I know it sounds corny, but they share my vision. We’re also great friends. . . . The kind of relationship we have definitely affects the music.”

The album and Wilkie’s Web site (which he has designed himself: www.scottwilkie.com) has broadened Wilkie’s audience beyond Southern California and the U.S.

“I was in Japan a month after the record came out. . . . I’d been there many times for Roland, but this was the first time with my music in the stores,” he said. “It’s such a kick to walk into a record store where people don’t even speak your language and have them come up to you and say they know your music. I guess it really is the universal language.”

* The Scott Wilkie Band plays Saturday at the Newport Beach Jazz Festival, Hyatt Newporter hotel, 1107 Jamboree Road. 3:30 p.m. (stage two). The festival runs from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, $30, two-day pass $50, VIP seating (includes backstage pass) $125. (949) 650-5483.