By Jonathan Widran

Somehow energized the Monday morning after his latest spectacular performance at 94.7 The Wave's Hyatt Regency Newport Beach Jazz Festival, Peter White rolls out of bed ready to talk about some important numbers. He’s naturally excited that Talkin’ Bout Love, the first single released to radio from his new album Confidential, is his 12th #1 airplay hit, testament once again to his compelling way with a groove and acoustic guitar melody. He can’t wait to play for the third consecutive year at the Great Waikoloa Food, Wine & Music Festival as part of Dolphin Days Summer Fest on Hawaii’s Big Island, which he will once again turn into a six-day family vacation for his wife Robin and their daughter Charlotte, turning 4 in August. And approaching his 50th birthday this September, White is quick to point out an even more significant milestone - 30 years as a professional musician, first as a sideman for Al Stewart and Basia, and one of smooth jazz's most popular core artists for 15 years.

"Robin jokes that I’m beyond middle age," he laughs, "but I prefer when people hear me play live and say, 'My God, he's good for half a century! But that’s my age and I have no reason to hide it. I remember the first time I played the Catalina Jazz Festival I was still in my mid-30s, I read some of (promoter) Art Good’s bios and noticed that many of the performers were in their 40's. That seemed old then, but then my perspective changed as I got there myself. All 50 means to me is that I've survived and managed to make a living for 30 years, and I’m happier turning this age than I was at 30. Back then, I had played professionally for 10 years, had written some songs (including the Top 10 pop hit Time Passages with Stewart), but was just a guy in a band. I hadn’t yet achieved what I’d hoped for."

White remembers waking up one morning when he was 33 and turning on 94.7 in Los Angeles, expecting to hear KMET play Led Zeppelin. Instead, he heard the melodic strains of two unfamiliar fellow Englishmen, Nick Webb and Greg Carmichael of Acoustic Alchemy, being played on the brand new Wave, which would become a landmark outlet in the developing smooth jazz phenomenon.

"I heard the acoustic guitars, liked the beat, and I thought I could do that," he recalls. "Acoustic Alchemy really blazed the trail as far as I was concerned because no one else was doing it. I always loved playing the acoustic guitar and was featured on it when I played with Al. One day, the Wave started playing Al’s song, Ghostly Horses of the Plain, which was an instrumental with me playing the lead. I thought, if they can play a song with me on it from his album, why wouldn’t they play a song I performed myself? I think I knew I had made it as a solo artist shortly after I released Reveillez-vous in 1990 and a fan came up and said he loved my music - and he never knew I had played with Al Stewart!"

White’s subsequent success in the format can be partially measured by a few more lofty numbers - four time winner of the "Guitarist of the Year" award at the National Smooth Jazz Awards and two albums (Caravan of Dreams and Perfect Moment), which each spent more than a year on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Chart. Confidential entered the chart at #2. Over the years, he’s led off his live shows with two of his biggest trademark hits Promenade and later, San Diego. Now he’s having fun starting gigs and receiving enthusiastic responses with three tunes from Confidential, Jump On It, How Does It Feel and Talkin’ Bout Love.

White insists there are no "magic buttons" to continuously come up with the hits radio loves to play, but he insists that melody has always been far more important to him than trying to impress anyone with great chops and overtly jazzy improvisations. He’s far more comfortable defining his music as "pop instrumental" than anything implying he's a true jazz performer.

"I grew up listening to melodic pop and melody was really important when I played with Al, who was like a mentor and didn’t like real jazz at all," says White. "I learned over the years that melody is the most important thing, more crucial to one's success than ego and virtuosity. The song Time Passages had some nice playing, but it’s the melody people remember. All of my own albums emphasize song form over using those songs as a vehicle for hardcore playing."

He adds that melodies usually don’t hit him out of thin air, but come to him while he’s listening to tracks with harmonies and grooves created by either him or the producers he works with (including Paul Brown, Steven Dubin and Mindi Abair’s producer Matthew Hagar). "They just spring to mind and I start to write them the minute I hear the foundational parts," he says. "That’s what inspires me. Talkin’ Bout Love started when I was visiting Paul’s house to check out the way he’d remodeled. He said he had some cool ideas he wanted to run by me, some tracks he liked. This one was a track he’d worked out with Rex Rideout. As I listened to the intro, I picked up Paul’s own guitar and instantly started playing my part like it was the most natural thing."

While White's fans can always count on a few large handfuls of instantly hummable tunes, on Confidential the guitarist adds a unique artistic element in the packaging – a Pulp Fiction-styled classic comic book cover designed by illustrator Mark Zingarelli. The sexy, mysterious woman in the green dress by the open door is either coming or going, and the man in the shadow is holding an envelope literally sealed with a kiss. The back cover implies a hotel room setting, with a man leaving his guitar to go after the woman; White cleverly includes liner notes which weave every song title into a narrative inspired by the images.

The idea for this design emerged when Columbia Records, for the second album in a row (Glow was released in 2001), failed to approve any of the pictures of White from the photo shoot as appropriate for the cover. "They had an issue with the pictures of me inspired by the song Chasing the Dawn on Glow, and this time, they saw pics of me smiling that didn’t fit the mood they wanted the cover to convey. Mark Feldman at the label did some research on the title we came up with, Confidential, and came upon www.houseofzing.com, with these cool illustrations. I saw a strip of the curvaceous woman and thought she would add to a great concept. If they didn’t want me on the cover, then I wanted her! The way the cover came out is very mysterious, and begs a lot of questions I want the listener to contemplate while hearing the music."

Meanwhile, back in real life in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, White has been exploring the even deeper mysteries of fatherhood, enjoying the fun and challenge of being a dad to Charlotte. One of the things he loves best about Dolphin Days is taking his daughter into the sandy bottom-kiddy pool. He and Robin have taken Charlotte on many musical travels as well as family vacations to England and New Zealand, where White’s sister lives. Now that Charlotte is in pre-school, White has time during the day to get work done, but he always does his utmost to take a load off Robin (who also works part time) whenever he can.

"She’s a wonderful little girl, and my life is so different now with her as the centerpiece," he says. "I definitely have to manage my time better. When I’m playing with her, I have to forget that I have phone calls to make and focus on pretending to eat pretend food from a fake fridge when we play with her little tea set. The real challenge is patience and constantly finding things to keep her entertained. We’ve even bought her a DVD player to keep her amused when we fly.

"Between making music and raising Charlotte, I really am going to enjoy turning 50," he adds. “I've come a long way, when you think about it. I remember very vividly being 20 years old back in England and walking out of this factory that made automatic transmissions, where I worked for a few months. Walking into the sunshine and then taking a walk in the park, I vowed then and there that I was going to make my living in music. How do you think it's turned out?"