Caelan Cardello
‘Chapter One’
Jazz Bird Records

Appearing at Dizzy’s
Jazz at Lincoln Center
September 16

A shoeless Caelan Cardello was playing a Steinway. “That can’t be easy,” I remarked to no one in particular, “to operate the sustain pedals without shoes.”  “It isn’t,” replied the person sitting next to me, “It’s especially hard on a Steinway.”

That person was Jill McCarron, one of a half-dozen or so prominent New York pianists who were there at a private reception held to launch Mr. Cardello’s album, “Chapter One,” at a penthouse at Chelsea. Some of the others included Mr. Cardello’s most visible mentor and booster, Bill Charlap, as well as Renee Rosnes, Fred Hersch, and Brandon Goldberg, along with about 40 others from the city’s jazz scene, not to mention Mr. Cardello’s parents.

Mr. Cardello was shoeless — as were the rest of us — in the apartment of the head of Jazz Bird Records, Geoffrey Hoefer, for whom Ms. McCarron also records. We doffed our footwear at his request, as he didn’t want to add the expense of carpet cleaning to the album’s budget, though this penthouse was so posh he looked like he could afford it. Thankfully we had been warned in advance; as Rodgers and Hart cautioned us, “stockings are porous, with holes in the toes.”

At 25, Mr. Cardello is already a major star of the keyboard, having played his own trio gigs at Birdland and Dizzy’s — where he appears Tuesday night — and also working extensively with singers such as Hilary Kole and Tyreek McDole.  Two years ago, he co-starred on an excellent album of jazz standards with an 81-year-old bass legend, Rufus Reid.

Still, the new “Chapter One” is officially his debut, especially in that the majority of the tunes are his own originals, which he showcased on Monday evening and doubtless will again Tuesday night. He started the set with one of these, a bright and breezy tune called “Goin’ Fishin” — for which, in the live performance especially, his drummer, Domo Branch, played mostly tambourine rather than the traditional trap set, giving the piece a lighthearted, outdoors-y kind of a sound. Some tunes are meant to be sung, others hummed, but this one should be whistled in the manner of the “Andy Griffith Show” theme.

He played several interpretations of canonical works at the reception, notably a reading of “Evidence.” Contrary to the usual trajectory of an improvisation, he seemingly started very far away from Thelonious Monk’s melody — even further away than “Evidence” is from its own source material, the 1929 pop song “Just You, Just Me” — and yet as he went on, he came closer and closer to the tune, offering more and more evidence that he was indeed playing “Evidence.” 

Mr. Cardello’s other major standard was “Three Views of a Secret,” which is rapidly becoming the late Jaco Pastorius’s answer to Bill Evans’s “Waltz for Debby,” not only in its time signature but in that it has become a much relied upon vehicle for abundant lyricism in modern jazz.

Of his other originals, “Steppin’ Up” opened with thunderous notes in the bass but a contrastingly cheerful, fleet-footed melody in the right hand — I kept thinking of Ray Bryant’s “Cubano Chant”; it was kind of dark and light at the same time. “A Night in New York” revealed the intimate, personal side of Manhattan after hours, in contrast to the uproarious party side.

As the set began to wind down, he treated us to an even slower, more contemplative ballad, played mostly unaccompanied — or with bassist Jonathon Muir-Cotton playing very quietly — titled “Where Do We Go Now?” The answer is, evidently, to church. He concluded with his spiritually driven, gospel-infused “Music for the People.” But since we weren’t actually in the Abyssinian Baptist, a few hardy souls got up to dance, turning the event briefly into a kind of sock hop.

So, about those socks: After the set, I asked Mr. Cardello and he replied, in direct contrast to Ms. McCarron (who has a show of her own at Mezzrow on September 26), “I actually find it more fun to use the pedals with socks. I’m not sure why but it was a more freeing feeling.”  

“Chapter One” is a stunning album that announces a major new voice on the keyboard. As for the live set, the only thing I found lacking was that I kept hoping Mr. Cardello would play “Penthouse Serenade” followed by “Shoeless Joe” from “Damn Yankees.”