It's time for the smooth jazz story-telling sounds of Jeff Lorber

Smooth jazz pioneer Jeff Lorber said music industry heavyweight Clive Davis didn't exactly know what he had in those first albums from Whitney Houston and Kenny G.

The founder of Jeff Lorber Fusion was in Minneapolis as the featured performer of Shaun LaBelle's tremendous two-day, four-show gig at the Dakota. Incomparable musicians Dave Barry, Daryl Boudreaux, Kenni Holmen, Donnie LaMarca and Stokley Williams also played.

At Manny's for dinner on Saturday night with LaBelle, Lorber told stories that made me wonder Where's the book, Jeff? According to Lorber, Davis was "not at all" confident he had a hit with Houston's first album. "He was really worried about it," said Lorber, who thought he heard a few sure-fire hits in "You Give Good Love," "Saving All My Love for You," "How Will I Know" and "The Greatest Love of All."

Lorber said Davis was "insecure. He wasn't sure. It's a tough business. And at that time, I don't think Arista was doing that great as far as R&B music. You know, the music business is very cyclical. I think they were in a downward cycle at the time."

When it came to Kenny G., whose solo career was launched after he had been a credited member of Jeff Lorber Fusion, Davis didn't foresee the platinum sales in the sax player's future. "I had to convince him [Kenny G.'s] album would do well," Lorber said.

Davis also had an interesting way of showing his toughness. If you were on time for a meeting with Davis, who was perpetually late, he might invite you to sit in on the meeting he was wrapping up. "He would let you in to hear him rip somebody else a new [expletive], about something absolutely none of your business, before he got to you," Lorber said.

The butt of jokes Multi-instrumentalist Shaun LaBelle played his tail off on that bass.

"How's your [butt]?" KARE11 photog Scott Madson, another friend, asked LaBelle, who walked gingerly and experienced the most pain getting in and out of seats. "Hurts like hell," LaBelle said, wincing.

Madson told him it could have been worse: "I said, 'At least you didn't break your wrist. Of all the things you're gonna break, it might as well be your tail bone.'"

Lorber, who's incredibly humble about his legendary stature in the music world, is so soft-spoken it was surprising to see him contributing to the buttocks humor. After quietly manipulating his iPhone, Lorber showed LaBelle a medical graphic of the bone in question, asking, "Is this it?"

A budding prodigy? "I call him 'Beat Box,'" said Stokley Williams of his 2 1/2 year old, Arion, who is already showing a strong, though by no means unexpected, proclivity for the drums, one of his dad's instruments.

Arion, his 7-year-old sister, Aaliyah, and their mom, Sylvia Williams, of Sylveelicious.com, the bakery/patisserie, came to see their dad's/husband's early show on Monday.

Between sets, Arion was not willing to showcase his drumming skills for the public, but "He knows all the songs," Sylvia said.

No last-minute addition David Aaron Thomas tried to horn in on Shaun LaBelle's show.

Before Monday's late show, Thomas -- a Twin Cities trumpet player who also runs a music school and has a CD, "Wingin' It" -- dropped by the green room to renew acquaintances with Jeff Lorber. Then Thomas asked if he could sit in on their performance. Lorber politely said no.

When Thomas left, I asked Lorber about the request. "Abnormal," said Lorber, who joked that the Dakota needed better security.

With LaBelle spending each day for months agonizing over every detail of this show, an unknown last-minute variable was way out of the question.

"It was a looser thing as opposed to a show they put together," the Dakota's Lowell Pickett told me Tuesday. And the night Wynton Marsalis dropped by with members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Marsalis was not there as a scheduled act and Thomas performed after Wynton, according to Pickett's recollection.