Smooth jazz? Guitarist says label is misleading

Peter White's Christmas show heads to Cleveland.
By JOHN BENSON
vindicator correspondent
Guitarist Peter White doesn't know what to make of the smooth jazz label.
Despite being a critically acclaimed musician in the genre for more than 15 years with nearly a dozen albums to his credit, he's still uncomfortable with the S and J tag. This is especially true with his live shows, which may attract jazz fans but are anything but laid back relaxing affairs.
"There's a lot of surprises, a lot of things you wouldn't expect from a jazz concert," said White, calling from Boston. "I don't think of it as a jazz concert. I've never thought of myself as a jazz musician. I'm an old rock 'n' roll guy who somehow found his way into what we call smooth jazz."
With Al Stewart
White's career began in his early 20s when he teamed up with Al Stewart for the singer's 1975 album "Year of the Cat." Later, the guitarist co-wrote Stewart's hit single "Time Passages."
It wasn't until White's debut solo album, 1990's "Reveillez-Vous," that the Englishman first became mentioned in jazz circles. Soon he found a loyal audience and started recording and touring on a regular basis. His latest solo album, "Confidential," was released in 2004.
In White's career, happenstance seems to be a common denominator. From hooking up with Stewart to his accidental success in smooth jazz, White has just seemed to be continuously in the right place at the right time. This was also the case with his annual digression into holiday music, which began in 1994 when Art Good asked him to join the JazzTraxx Christmas tour.
"I was thinking I haven't played Christmas music since I was a kid, and I don't know how this is going to work," White said. "So I took the gig, because you do that as a musician, and I found out it brought me back to my childhood and I really enjoyed playing the music. Especially when I heard the people singing and saw the reactions to those songs and I started to think about maybe I could do a Christmas album. And the album [1997's 'Songs of the Season'] was based largely upon the arrangements I made during that first tour."
Annual outing
From there, Dave Koz asked White to join his annual Christmas outing, which the guitarist was a part of for five successful years, including many memorable Northeast Ohio shows at the Playhouse Square Center. Then when Koz decided to change his holiday lineup three years ago, White figured there were plenty of cities interested in hearing smooth jazz seasonal music, so was born The Peter White Christmas Show.
Joining White on stage are fellow smooth jazz veterans Rick Braun and Mindi Abair. The tour pulls into Cleveland for a show Wednesday at the Palace Theatre. Above all, White hopes the smooth jazz label doesn't keep people away.
"I know that people have dragged their husbands, boyfriends and wives who had no idea what was going to happen, and they all thoroughly enjoyed it," White said. "It's an event where everybody gets involved and the Christmas music to me just makes it special because everybody has a shared experience. We actually start the songs and let the audience finish some of them. It feels really good to hear everybody singing at the same time. I love that."