article1=His solo piano music helped Derrick Stout establish himself as an independent producer and recording artist but, these days, he's mostly stylin.
    'Turnstylin', that is.
    After releasing his first Turnstyles CD, "Sybil Meet Sybil" in 1994, the Lake Forest musician has turned out another package of rocking Turnstyles music, "Live in the Studio."
    The 12 tracks on the recording were selected by the rotating membership of the band (Stout keeps "a club" of roughly 40 musicians on call for live shows) as the best from the many pop tunes Stout has written for the group.  Then, in a highly uncommon move, Stout recorded the songs, music and lyrics simultaneously, live in his Baby Doin' the Jig studio.
    "It has the energy and excitement of a live recording, with the production quality of a studio project," he said.
    Stout waited until the most accomplished members of the Turnstyles club (playing under their noms de style) were available to record: Barbie Cappuccino (Wilmette native Scott Bennett on bass and vocals), Pondo Sinatra (Winnetka's Matt Walker on drums), BlueRoy (Arch Alcantara of Lake Forest on lead guitar and vocals) and Suede (Stout on rhythm guitar and vocals).
    Stout started out playing solo piano music around the North Shore.  His self-produced CD, "Deerpath," sold enough copies to allow him to set up his studio and record label.
    Lately, Turnstyles has taken over his performance schedule, with three or four jobs a month for the full band and another three or four with Suede and BlueRoy playing as an acoustic duo -- including Thursdays at Pops in Highwood.
    His Deerpath Music label has sold some 40,000 records by nearly a dozen artists, including his Derrick Stout Jazz Quartet, at local stores and through the internet at his in-sites.com/deerpath site and internet retailers like amazon.com.
    He's particularly proud, however, of the "Roots and Wings" CD of student material he recently produced for the Lathrop Community Music Center, which gives free music lessons to kids in Chicago's Lathrop, Hamlin Park and Logan Square communities.
    "That was a very moving project," said Stout, praising the kids who brought their sometimes harrowing personal stories into the studio and turned them into songs.  "It's one thing to read about drive-by shootings on the news but when you see a girl rapping about her boyfriend who was just shot dead on the street, it's another thing. It makes it all uncomfortably real."