Dave Bass really knows what he's doing. Listen to the jazz pianist and composer's exquisite new CD "Gone." The assured sense of musicianship confidently announces the man isn't just dabbling.

The songs (all but one are originals) tell you he knows music, and as musicians like say, he has a story to tell. Actually, Bass has many stories to tell in explaining how he came to be a piano-playing attorney who in his youth had a fondness for the jazz avant garde.

Bass is known around town for his work as a deputy attorney general in civil rights enforcement, but he's kept a relatively low profile musically. Though he's worked locally with the Afro-Cuban ensemble La Descarga!, Bass hasn't yet played as a leader here. All that changes Sunday when he performs at JB's Lounge in the Red Lion, bringing a raft of special guests to help him celebrate his Sacramento musical coming-out.

Besides the three other members of his working quartet (Robbie Kwok on trumpet, Kerry Kashiwagi on bass and Tim Metz on drums), Bass has enlisted guitarist Steve Homan and conguero Eddie Diaz. The wild cards for the show are the quintet of vocalists Bass has lined up. Sacramento-based singers Ann Roach, Beth Duncan, Francesca Homan and Vivian Lee, along with Clairdee from the Bay Area, will all perform original songs by Bass.

"I had the singers choose the songs they were going to do because I wanted them to feel an attachment to something that was speaking to them in the song," Bass said recently over lunch in midtown Sacramento.

He composes the music and writes the lyrics for the songs, which isn't done as much in the jazz idiom as it is in pop.

"The lyrics are obviously more personal than just a melodic line," Bass said.

"Any professional singer can sing anything, but what I'm looking for is someone who can put the lyrics over like I think Mary (Stallings) does on the CD."

Bass released the CD "Gone" in 2010, and listeners around the country took notice of the well-played mainstream release. The musicians on the record included bassist Gary Brown; legendary saxophonist Ernie Watts; and an old friend of Bass, drummer Babatunde Lea, who produced the record with the pianist. "Gone" reached No. 2 on the Jazz Week charts and made its top-100 list at the end of year. The track "Mi Guajira" was one of the top-10 downloaded MP3s listed at the website www.allaboutjazz.com. Jazz musicians don't really have hits, but that kind of recognition rates as a success.

"To my ear the greatest jazz instrumentalists are vocalists," Bass said.

He lived in San Francisco in the 1970s and often visited Keystone Korner, where he saw the saxophonist Dexter Gordon, who famously recited lyrics before performing tunes.

"Dexter would get up to the microphone, holding his horn horizontally, and he'd say 'You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.' It was a little bit of a shtick, but it was how he approached a song, and I remember that," Bass said.

Bass didn't just happen upon his jazz chops; he's honed them since he was child taking piano lessons in his hometown of Cincinnati. While living in Boston, he studied composition with George Russell, Avram David and the highly respected teacher Margaret Chaloff. Then, in San Francisco, he played professionally in the active mainstream and Latin scenes, including working with Bobby McFerrin and singer Jackie Ryan.

A wrist fracture and the demands of fatherhood posed challenges for Bass, however,

"The doctor said, 'You're gonna heal, but whether you're going to have all the facility you used to have is anybody's guess,' " Bass said. "At the time I liked to argue a lot and I liked to read, so I thought, 'I'll become a lawyer.' "

Bass had to start by getting a bachelor's degree. He went to the University of California, Irvine, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude before going to UCLA law school, where he was editor of the UCLA Law Review. His law career began in 1992, and flourished.

The jazz pianist, equally conversant in the idiosyncrasies of modernists such as Paul Bley and the influence of masters like Art Tatum, lay dormant for nearly 20 years.

Five years ago Bass was going through a period of personal reflection, when an invitation to casually play at party led to him become serious about his music once again.

"The monster just came out once I started playing again," Bass said. "I was rusty as hell, didn't have any chops, couldn't remember half the tunes, but it felt unbelievable."

Bass is unlikely to quit his day job, but if you get the chance to catch him moonlighting at the piano, what you'll hear is his life's work.

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