While most organists come to the instrument by way of piano, for John Pedersen, it went the other way around.

The longtime Escondido resident has just released his fifth CD of smooth jazz and New Age ("Groovidi"), featuring himself on (primarily) piano, his main instrument.

But Pedersen (playing Saturday night at Hot Java Cafe in Carmel Mountain Ranch) said during an interview last week that it was on organ that he first found his talent for music.

"My dad bought an organ for my mom," he said. "I was 11 years old. My mom played piano and violin. She played with the organ a bit, but I went and played on it and they could see I had talent."

Pedersen said five free music lessons were included with the purchase of the organ, and so his parents sent him off to take them. He ended up studying with that teacher for two and a half years, learning show tunes and popular music before studying with a more classically trained organ teacher for another two and a half years.

It wasn't until age 14, when he was invited to join a band that his two older brothers had started, that he got turned on to the piano.

"My dad advanced me the money to buy a portable organ and an electric piano" to use for the band's gigs, Pedersen said. He described the band as a "country and rock covers band," and said it was weird playing in bars at 14 --- the bartenders would make him virgin drinks for him to sip out back in between sets, as he wasn't allowed in the bars except when the band was playing.

While attending Orange Glen High School, Pedersen said he was in a handful of other working bands -- mostly cover bands playing the popular hits from the time (the mid to late 1970s). And while his parents never had a piano in the house, Pedersen was able to practice in the band room at Orange Glen at lunch and after school.

After graduating, he attended Palomar for three years, although he said he had to leave school before earning his music degree. He worked as a lab technician for a high-tech firm for 10 years -- and then found himself laid off and out of regular work.

"I could not find a job," he said of that time. "I put out hundreds of job applications and resumes."

Needing a way to help feed his young family, and having worked as an organist at Resurrection Church in north Escondido since 1975, Pedersen said he took the advice of family and friends and began offering piano lessons at a local music store. That decision put him back in the music business for good, and led to jobs providing accompaniment for a local singer -- as well as his recording career.

The singer's brother had built a home recording studio in the mid-'90s, and at his urging Pedersen recorded an album of his own compositions.

"I had a bunch of tunes ready because I'd been writing music for a number of years," Pedersen said of that first CD. "Seeing my musical ideas that were in my head actually come out on a recording and hearing them exactly as I heard them in my head" was an extraordinary experience, he said.

Selling the CDs through local music and record shops helped him recoup his costs, and a succession of CDs has followed.

Interestingly, though, despite having recorded five albums during the past 12 years, Pedersen hasn't performed much as a leader playing his own music. Saturday's Hot Java show will be his first playing his own music since he rented a piano and performed in the foyer at the Westfield North County mall in the spring of 2006.

After the Hot Java show, he said he intends to start seeking gigs at local bookstores.

And asked if he's nervous about playing his music in front of his fans instead of recording his music in a studio and then selling the CDs to his fans, Pedersen laughed. And then he admitted, "A little bit."

John Pedersen with Jeffrey Joe Morin

When: 7 p.m. Sept. 15

Where: Hot Java Cafe, 11738 Carmel Mountain Road, Carmel Mountain Ranch

Admission: Free

Info: (858) 673-7111

Web: myspace.com/pianomanjohnpedersen