Close your eyes, and it could be Gershwin on the piano.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Let's get one thing straight: Kevin Cole is not George Gershwin reincarnated.

Well, we think he's not, anyway.

But consider the following story that Cole - who will perform Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" tonight with the Eugene Symphony - tells about himself.

When he was 7 years old and growing up in Bay City, Mich., he asked his parents to let him stay up late one school night to watch a television broadcast of ``Rhapsody in Blue,'' the 1945 Warner Brothers biopic about Gershwin.

They agreed. The next day, young Kevin, who had been playing piano since he was 4, headed for the public library and asked to see books about Gershwin.

A friendly librarian steered him toward "The Gershwin Years" by Edward Jablonski, pointing out that Jablonski, too, had grown up in Bay City.

"I made myself a promise that one day I would go to New York and look up E. Jablonski in the phone book," Cole said in a telephone interview last week. ``And eight years later, when I was 15, I indeed pulled out the Manhattan directory and called a Jablonski, E., not knowing if I had the correct one. And in a slightly tumescent voice I said, `I am from Bay City, Mich., and I like Gershwin, too!' ''

The bemused writer invited the teenager over for dinner. After the dishes were cleared away, Jablonski and his wife asked Cole to sit down at the piano and play.

Cole played a Gershwin prelude and a few songs. Then Jablonski brought out some manuscript piano pieces in Gershwin's own hand and asked if Cole could sight-read.

The boy could.

The startled critic listened to the music and said, ``I have had all kind of concert pianists play these things. And they don't sound like that. Has anyone ever told you that you sound just like Gershwin when you play?''

That was the first big step in what would be a career at the keyboard, playing Gershwin's music the way Gershwin himself played it.

``When Cole sits down at the piano, you would swear Gershwin himself was at work,'' Chicago Tribune arts critic Howard Reich has written. "Cole stands as the best Gershwin pianist in America today."

Even Gershwin's own family members have told Cole his style perfectly matches the composer's. Cole himself can't entirely explain it, though he isn't really given to mystical musings about channeling and such. He is more likely to talk about musical scores being a road map he instinctively knows how to interpret.

``I had not studied Gershwin's music,'' he said. ``I had not listened to recordings to copy. It was just the way the music spoke to me.''

Cole's approach is sparer and cleaner than some romantic versions of Gershwin.

``After the war, Leonard Bernstein came out with his recorded version of `Rhapsody,' ' Cole said. `It was so overblown and so overly stretched and romanticized and Hollywoodized. That became the standard. But when Gershwin played, it had pop and crackle and fireworks going on. It was meant to startle and jolt.''

Cole has appeared recently with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London; and with Cincinnati Pops, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony and the Boston Philharmonic.

Tonight he will play "Rhapsody in Blue," along with Gershwin's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F Major.

The program also includes Aaron Copland's Suite from ``Billy the Kid'' and three dance episodes from Bernstein's ``On the Town.''

Cole says he hasn't tired of Gershwin's music in the four decades since he stayed up to watch that movie on television.

``It's like an impressionistic painting,'' he said. ``The more you look at it, the more you see. I have never heard anyone say, `I am tired of hearing it.' There is always something new to discover.''

CONCERT PREVIEW

Eugene Symphony Orchestra

What: Pianist Kevin Cole joins the symphony for a program of American music by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland

Where: Hult Center's Silva Concert Hall, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

When: 7:30 p.m. tonight

Tickets: $39 to $60 (682-5000)