An Inspired Start : Seeing Louis Armstrong perform launched Tiger Okoshi on a lifelong infatuation with jazz. He’ll play at La Ve Lee.

STUDIO CITY — Louis Armstrong was a trailblazer. As the first major soloist in jazz, he has, at least indirectly, served as the primary musical model for most of the jazz players who followed him. But in the case of Tiger Okoshi, the influence was more immediate.

Okoshi was a 13-year-old living in Japan, when he traveled with his family to Kyoto and heard the famed Armstrong. The experience was the springboard for the life as a jazz musician he lives today.

“He had this big, big smile, and I didn’t understand any of the music or the lyrics he was singing,” said Okoshi. “There were so many American people in the audience, and compared to Japanese audiences, Americans are much closer to this music, and after five or 10 minutes, it felt like we had been together for days. So it was a big question for me: How did he make this happen, make all these people happy?”

At the time, Okoshi had been playing trumpet for just six months. After the concert, he found he had as much fondness for Armstrong’s likeness as he did for his music. “Every night I looked at Satchmo’s smiling face on a photograph from a movie I had by my bed,” the now 44-year-old Okoshi recalled in a phone interview from Niihama, Japan, where he was touring. “I’d say good night to him, and then good morning to him.”

Okoshi, who plays tonight and Saturday at La Ve Lee, later encountered other trumpeters. Among them were Herb Alpert--”I played his ‘Tijuana Brass’ music in high school and the girls went crazy”--Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan--”Something about his open tone reminded me of Louis”--and Miles Davis--”especially his ‘Live at the Fillmore’ period.” He incorporated the last three influences into his style, which is based on long strands of notes, a bright, compelling sound and crisp, rhythmic phrasing.

But the trumpeter still felt moved enough by Armstrong to record an album of tunes by, or associated with, the man who was affectionately called “Pops.” Okoshi’s 1993 “Echoes of a Note” (JVC Records) features such notables as guitarist Mike Stern and drummer Peter Erskine delivering solid contemporary versions of classics such as “Hello, Dolly,” “St. James Infirmary” and “What a Wonderful World.”

That album, Okoshi said, opened his ears to a new way of making music. He had long been accenting the contemporary aspect of jazz, playing more fusion style, getting “more into arrangements and danceable grooves.”

“I started to feel that that was not enough, that it was mostly soloist and background,” he said. “So on that album I found I wanted to concentrate not on what I was doing as a soloist, but how I carried on a musical conversation with, how I reacted to, the great musicians around me. I felt like for many years I was developing my speech, and there I stopped talking and started to listen and to make conversation.”

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At La Ve Lee, Okoshi will make his first Los Angeles appearance in 14 years. His last was “probably before the Civil War,” he quipped, referring to a performance with vibist Gary Burton in 1980. The trumpeter, who has lived in Boston since 1972, will work with a quartet that includes guitarist Jeff Richman, bassist Jimmy Earl and drummer Joel Taylor. The group will play pieces from “Echoes of a Note” and from Okoshi’s new album, “Two Sides to Every Story” (also on JVC). “I’ll want to feel my way around the audience,” said Okoshi. “If they want something harder, something loud, maybe I’ll solo for 20 minutes. But these days, I’m playing soft songs softer, too.”

Okoshi has garnered plenty of critical acclaim. Bill Milkowski, who has written for down beat, Jazz Is and other magazines, wrote in the liner notes to “Two Sides” that Okoshi plays “with emotive power and soulful nuance.”

The musician started to learn trumpet when he wanted to join his school’s marching band at age 12. “I picked up this dirty trumpet and made a sound,” he said, sounding happy at the memory. In high school, he worked leading various bands, and in 1972 he came to the United States to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Okoshi says he loves jazz “because it gives me the freedom to speak up. Music is a tool for me to reach people. It’s a beautiful way to go around the world, offering some kind of message.”

Where and When

Who: Tiger Okoshi.

Location: La Ve Lee, 12514 Ventura Blvd., Studio City.

Hours: 9:30 and 11:30 tonight and Saturday.

Price: $5 cover and two-drink minimum for each show.

Call: (818) 980-8158.