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Curtis Stigers has appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and has been on "Late Show with David Letterman." ().

By Jeff Petersen

Observer Staff Writer

Pop star turned jazz vocalist/saxophonist Curtis Stigers knows a part of La Grande that a lot of La Grande people don't know.

That's the 3:30 morning scene, when the sidewalks are rolled up and most folks are snug in bed.

La Grande proved a handy break point for the aspiring musician on the approximately 55 trips he took while going to school at Pasco's Columbia Basin College and visiting a girlfriend back in Boise. CBC had an excellent jazz instrumental and vocal program teacher who saw him in high school and recruited him.

His stay at CBC, however, was brief. By the late 1980s and early 1990s Stigers' "I Wonder Why" was a top 10 hit and had sold nearly

2 million albums.

Now Stigers and his top-notch trio are coming to La Grande for a concert April 3. Stigers, of Boise, has achieved an international reputation and critical acclaim as a jazz artist with his interpretations of classic numbers by John Lennon, Billy Joel, Elvis Costello, and Irving Berlin, among others.

After a falling out with his record company and a reinvention as a jazz singer and saxophonist, Stigers won "Best Jazz Album 2003" from the London Times.

Stigers spent 16 years in New York City, living in Manhattan until moving to the suburbs and a Hudson River Victorian house.

When his Irish-American wife Amy gave birth to their daughter, Ruby, four years ago, New York took a back seat.

"It sorta didn't make since to be there any more, since I make a living touring and all I need for that is a telephone, an e-mail line and an airport. And Boise airport is a lot easier to get to and through."

Stigers makes a record each year, going to New York or Los Angeles, depending on who he's working with.

He'll bring a quartet including himself, a piano player, bass player and a drummer to

La Grande.

In 1991 when his first album came out, he had been in New York about four years.

"A lot of record companies got interested in me all at once, and began coming around like sharks." He signed with Arista, joining such artists as Whitney Houston.

Stigers lists many musical influences, not just pop and jazz. Growing up he listened to, among others, artists like Led Zeppelin, Willie Nelson and Aretha Franklin.

That may explain why Stigers is so adamant about continuing to experiment and grow as a musician.

After he had a couple of top 10 singles right out of the gate, the record company wanted him to continue in the same mold. That would have been the easy way out, but Stigers had other ideas, wanting to incrementally grow as an artist.

Arista underestimated Stigers.

"Basically I had to dismantle my pop career," he said. "I've never been happy just following what someone else told me to do. I'm just stubborn. I know what I'm supposed to do. Whether I'm wrong or right, I'm right, It's just me."

He said it was painful to watch a career that was successful early on disappear because of his battle with a record company.

"But in the long run it brought me to where I want to be — making a living touring, producing my own records. It beats sitting at home waiting for hit singles to happen."

Stigers grew up as and still is a fan of a wide range of music.

"I decided to try to find the great standards of today, of my generation, as well as of other generations," he said. For example, he covers Beatles and Billy Joel tunes, as well as songs from great songwriters like George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

"I made it my career path for now to find those songs that can work in any genre," Stigers said. "I can take a great song by the Beatles and make it swing. I am a jazz singer first and a lover of great songs."

In the La Grande concert, he will do the songs from the record "I Wonder Why", and jazz versions of his pop hit songs such as "I Never Saw a Miracle."

Among his other adventures, Stigers toured England with pop star Barry Manilow.

"He was a fan of my jazz stuff," Stigers said, and was also one of the mainstays of Arista's roster. "A friend called and said, ‘Hey, I read something in the Chicago Tribune where they asked Barry Manilow what he listened to and he said your music.

"I called Barry and said thanks for saying nice things."

Stigers said he sold 130 or 140 CDs a night at those concerts.

"The fans are rabid for him," he said. "They loved him like a religion."

Stigers still has Manilow fans that show up at all his shows, the more enthusiastic of which are called Maniloonies.

"It was a great opportunity to spend three months with him and got me in front of a lot more people."

Stigers had opened for Elton John, Eric Clapton and other top-name artists in the early 1990s.

He also has appeared with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, been on The Letterman Show and Regis and Kathy Lee.

"Jazz is kind of a redheaded stepchild of music," he said, "so it was great to get in front of 10,000 to 15,000 at night with the Maniloonies."

Stigers knows La Grande is not a jazz hotbed, and he emphasizes that jazz is to a degree intimidating to a lot of people.

"Hey, it's a four-letter word," he said. "But when people come to one of my shows, afterwards I sign CDs and hang out in the lobby. Some people come a little worried but later say, ‘I didn't realize I like jazz, but I do. It's different but it's not so challenging that it will turn people off. It's for people who like adult music, who like songs that tell stories."

"We put on a show," Stigers said. "We give it our all, and love doing what we do."