Slick licks slide out from Derek Trucks' guitar with ease and a deadly purpose. Anchored stage right, this young cat plays it loose. Yet the notes he plays - whether lead or rhythm, or merely accent - quiver in the bullseye. His warm, honeyed tone (think Duane Allman with a little more bite) is almost as laid back as Trucks himself as he lets fly with the flurry, looking poker faced, eyes shut, and remaining virtually motionless. We're talking mannequin-in-the-window still, here. He don't move at all.

Regardless, Derek Trucks is a guitar monster (he was featured on the February 2007 cover of Rolling Stone's Top 20 New Guitar Gods issue) dividing his time between his own band, The Allman Brothers, and as a featured soloist in Eric Clapton's band.

"Maybe it's that theory you hear better with your eyes closed," Trucks says of his on-stage stillness. "I think early on the guys that influenced me, that was always my view of how they played. I never saw them, like Duane Allman and John Coltrane, but I always assumed they were rather stoic. Part of it's that, part of it's my natural demeanor."

It's this Frigidaire cool - not to mention his musical skill - that's at the heart of The Derek Trucks Band. It's an upbeat hybrid of classic American strains like jazz, blues, and rock with all kinds of world music, explored, extrapolated, and exorcized on stage. You might call it a jam band, except Trucks knows when to say when.

"You have to have a certain amount of restraint in that sense," he says. "You don't play everything you know, you don't play every thought you have. It's like having a conversation with somebody; you give 'em the information, you convey what you're trying to convey, and you get out. There's a great quote from Elvin Jones on one of his records: ‘Tell your story. When you're playing, just tell your story."'

Still, a guy likes to stretch out a little, show what he's got.

"I think there's a time and place for that, too," he says. "If it's inspired and you're not resorting to licks or patterns, I say go."

A combination of that reserve and talent landed Trucks in with The Allman Brothers at age 20 in 1999. Trucks' uncle Butch is the band's drummer, and the boy first jammed with the group when he was 12.

Through his teens Trucks trucked with his own band, and the Allman Brothers kept tabs. The late Duane Allman was an influence and hero, but Trucks made sure not to overdo it when the band gave him a shot.

"I went in there wanting to hint at what he had done," he says. "But not recreate it. I think the reason I got the call is 'cause they kinda realized what I was doing at the time with my group wasn't imitating that sound, but was heavily influenced by it. I don't think I would have gotten the call if I was out there doing Allman Brothers covers all the time."

In The Derek Trucks Band, ideas come from anywhere and everywhere. Trucks searches for the commonality, what links it all besides his guitar.

"I think the word ‘soul' has too many wrong connotations at this point," he says. "But I think the folk element or the soul element. There's a certain purity to the songs we choose, not necessarily in the way we play them. I think the common thread is that it's all honest. I think there's a seriousness to the band that appeals to people. I mean, even though we're playing music from across the board, I think when we attempt something we're not just pawing at it, we try to get in it."

Trucks plans on attacking some of the genres within his sound more thoroughly if he ever gets the chance. First up: the blues. "I think that would be the first one to do," he says. "That's definitely closest to my roots. I definitely see that on the agenda at some point."

In the meantime Trucks has all kinds of balls in the air, including three bands and the two kids he has with his amazing, Grammy-nominated blues guitar-slingin' wife, Susan Tedeschi.

Two major six-string talents under one roof. Trucks downplays it a bit. "When we're home, it's kid time," he says. "There's not any guitar duels going on.... not yet."

But if there were?

"I'm sure she would win," he says. "She's a Scorpio, man." 

The Derek Trucks Band w/Ryan Shaw

Water Street Music Hall, 204 N Water St

Sunday, November 11

8 p.m. | $29.50-$35 | 325-5600