JAZZ : When It Comes to Music, He’s No Actor

In the course of a chameleonic 33-year career, Dudley Moore has had many images: a satirist, a stage actor, a movie star, a composer of film scores, a classical performer, a pop musician . . . and a jazz pianist.

These activities are not listed chronologically; indeed, they can’t be, since they have frequently overlapped. What matters is that this protean Briton has invested all of these endeavors with the same life-affirming enthusiasm and estimable talent.

Consider his current schedule. The Los Angeles Theatre Center production of “Lay of the Land,” a comedy about middle-aged marrieds in which he stars, is in previews and due to open Wednesday. Later this month, his new album, “Songs Without Words,” will be released on GRP Records.

Moore has also completed work on his latest film, “Blame It on the Bellboy,” a comedy to be released by Disney Studios under the Hollywood Pictures banner. (No release date has been set.) Also on Moore’s agenda are some British TV commercials he has been assigned to write.

Despite his success as an actor, jazz and pop music have stayed close to Moore’s heart. It was jazz that brought him to the United States in the late ‘50s, as an obscure sideman with the Vic Lewis Orchestra. He had joined the band in 1958 after having been graduated from Oxford with a BA in music and a B.Mus. in composition.

“It wasn’t the best way to see America,” Moore recalled during a recent interview. “Instead of working the jazz clubs we played at military camps. After the tour, I stayed behind and got a job playing piano at the Duplex, an intimate jazz room in Greenwich Village. I did all right there. In fact, Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records heard me and offered me a deal, but I was too anxious to get back to England, so I just went home.”

For a while, Moore had to struggle. “I did anything to make a living,” he said. “I wrote toothpaste jingles that played in the West Indies . . . composed an original ballet . . . worked for a while as resident composer at the Royal Court Theatre. They put me on a retainer, so at least I could keep myself in corn flakes.”

His fondest recollection of those days is the year he spent in the John Dankworth Band, featuring singer Cleo Laine. “That was a grand experience, playing John’s charts and hearing Cleo under all sorts of conditions,” he said. “We’ve remained good friends. We got together again in Los Angeles in 1982 and made an album, ‘Smilin’ Through.’ ”

Music moved to the back burner when the pianist formed his memorable partnership with Peter Cook for their satirical revue “Beyond the Fringe.” “I didn’t actually stop playing,” said Moore. “During the London run, I had played jazz trio numbers at intermission time.”

“Beyond the Fringe” spun off such fringe benefits as Moore’s recording career, which has produced more music albums (primarily jazz) than comedy albums by a current margin of 17 to 13.

Moore’s talents in comedy and music go back to his childhood. Born in Dagenham, a West London suburb, he took piano lessons at 6, and later studied violin, harpsichord and organ--he won an organ scholarship to Magdalen College at Oxford.

His first jazz hero was the legendary Erroll Garner, whom he first heard on a record when he was 16, and whose lag-along beat has been part of Moore’s pianist persona ever since.

His only direct encounter with his idol was disastrous. “One night he came to a club where I was working,” Moore recalls. “I was so eager to impress him, and so nervous, that I dropped a bottle of Coke on the keyboard. Everything from middle C down to G was ruined. I looked at this mess and tried to play--then when I looked up he was gone! That was the only time I ever got near him, and basically I just wanted to get on my knees and tell him how much I admired him.”

Since settling in Los Angeles in 1975, he has earned his greatest fame with such films as “Foul Play,” “10,” “Arthur” and others. Still, he hasn’t put a stop to his musical involvement.

In 1981, he joined with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a Gershwin tribute. Six years later, at Carnegie Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl, he performed some of his film scores along with the Beethoven Triple Concerto. In 1987 and 1989 he led a jazz trio, with Ray Brown on bass, at the Loa Club in Santa Monica. Visitors to the 72 Market Street Club in Venice, of which he is part owner, may find him sitting in on the occasional free night.

Moore’s new album was recorded in the studio of his Marina del Rey home and marks a stylistic departure from past efforts.

“For this album I enhanced the music with a synthesizer,” said Moore. “I like the evocative mood it created--a sort of blanket around the songs.”

Some of the music stems from various Moore film scores, including “Six Weeks”; there are also such newer works as “Patrick,” named for his 15-year-old son, and “Brogan,” for his wife, Brogan Lane. “This is one of the two tunes featuring Kenny G on saxophone,” Moore says. “Brogan wanted me to play with him.”

Because his other careers have limited the time he can devote to music--one question suggests itself: As a gifted and versatile player and composer, how far might he have gone if he had stayed exclusively in music?

“That’s a question I often keep asking myself,” he replied. “Economically there’s no comparison. I suppose I could have made it in music if I had been a bandleader and a composer, because the royalties keep flowing in. But actually, when I came out of college, what I wanted to do was get into a revue and be in a jazz group of some sort. The way things turned out, I consider myself lucky--I’ve had the best of both worlds.”