A Group Effort by Keyboardist : Jazz: Sandy Owen, who’ll make an appearance at Saddleback College, doesn’t consider his music complete until ‘it’s performed in front of people.’

Sandy Owen loves to do concerts. “I really have an affinity for them,” the 40-year-old pianist-composer said earlier this week in an interview that interrupted his work as a free-lance computer programmer in Costa Mesa. “The music isn’t complete until it’s performed in front of people.”

To that end, Owen will make one of his periodic appearances at Saddleback College tonight, a tradition that stretches back to 1985, as part of a quartet of exclusively Orange County musicians. The concert will benefit the school’s fine-arts department.

Since 1983, the keyboardist has released eight albums, seven of them his, on his own Ivory Records label. The latest, “Night Rhythms,” was released in 1989. “Compared to my other stuff, it has more of a cool sound to it. There’s more of a night jazz feel, with some late-night solo piano.”

The album, which featured saxophonist Paul Carman (who will appear with Owen tonight) was also the pianist’s first venture into mixing electronic and acoustic keyboards. “I’d played electric piano with Iliad (a jazz trio he was with in the ‘70s), but I hadn’t combined it with acoustic.”

He also sings on one track, “The City,” a tune done by the Mark-Almond Band in the early ‘70s. “I did it as an experiment and it turned out so well we decided to put it on the album. That vocal brought me more attention than I’ve ever received.”

But that didn’t boost his record label’s fortunes. “The album got a lot of attention, but it didn’t do so well (in sales). There was a distribution problem. Record stores have Sandy Owen bins, but a lot of them are empty.”

His earlier albums, he said, “were mostly a mixture of soft and up-tempo stuff.” An exception, 1986’s “Boogie Woogie Rhythm and Blues,” was a tribute to the New Orleans style of piano giants such as Meade (Lux) Lewis. “That was a fun project,” said Owen, who says his first composition, written at age 5, was a boogie-woogie tune. “I practiced for three or four months just doing boogie-woogie. The album is basically a combination of that old style with new, contemporary harmonics and rhythms.”

Though he’s hoping to put out a new recording early this year, he said the finances aren’t there for him to do it himself. “It’s a lot harder for the smaller guys now than it was five or six years ago. I’m either going to have to step up the business part of my musical career or jump to another label do more music.” He said several companies are looking at the new project.

“I have three albums’ worth of material,” he said, admitting that he’s a bit concerned about being able to progress with his music until he gets what he’s already written on tape. “I’m told you can get stuck (in a rut). Recording gets it out of your system and breaks up that creative block.”

For a long time, having his own label and holding down a day job has been the key to Owen’s artistic freedom. “The computer work is something that I’ve done all along,” said Owen, who holds degrees in computer science and philosophy from UC Irvine. “I’ve spoiled myself this way. I can play the stuff I want to play and it’s gotten me out of playing clubs. I don’t care for club jobs, where there’s a lot of noise and nobody’s paying attention.”

Owen says his biggest keyboard influences are Ramsey Lewis and Les McCann. “When I was in high school, I made tapes of their records, then played them back at half-speed so I could catch all the notes. I must know three dozen of their tunes.” He also cites Joe Zawinul’s playing while the Weather Report founder was with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. “I was struck by his inventiveness and sense of harmony. He was completely original, even off the wall.”

Film scores have also provided inspiration. “The movies of the ‘60s, ‘Ben-Hur,’ things by Michel LeGrand and John Barrie, all had a big emotional influence on me,” he said. “That’s still my biggest motivation: the power of music to convey emotion. That’s my strength and what I enjoy most.”

When he remarried in the summer of 1990, Owen, who was was born in Santa Monica and lived in Orange County from the time he enrolled in college, moved to Los Angeles to be closer to the entertainment industry. He recently made a guest appearance on ABC’s late-night “Studio 59” and has just completed his first soundtrack for an hourlong film, “The Forfeit.”

For tonight’s concert, he’ll play both in a quartet (with saxophonist Carman, bassist Craig Snazelle and drummer Tom Ravel) and solo. “We’ll be playing a lot of new stuff,” he said, “and some new versions of older material.” And, yes, the keyboardist will sing.

Pianist Sandy Owen appears tonight at 8 at the McKinney Theatre, Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Tickets: $14 to $16. Proceeds benefit the college’s fine arts department. (714) 582-4656.