MUSIC : The ‘Real Deal’ : Jazz pianist Bill Cunliffe, the 1989 Monk competition winner, gives songs foot-pumping swing.

Bill Cunliffe is, as they call a top-notch player in jazz circles, the “Real Deal.”

The Boston native, who has been in Los Angeles for five years, can take any kind of tune and instill it with such rhythmic vitality and melodic whammy that you won’t be able to stop your feet from tapping.

He can’t stop his: At a recent performance at Randell’s in Santa Ana, the pianist’s Nike-covered feet bounced up and down to the beat as he created long, heated improvisations that were exhilarating.

“I like to swing,” Cunliffe says of the rhythmic thrust that is essential to jazz. “That’s the feeling you get when a rhythm section’s reading each other’s minds and falling together as they play a piece of music.”

Cunliffe can make any song swing. His debut Discovery album, “A Paul Simon Songbook,” added an invigorating, ingratiating drive to such numbers by the singer-songwriter as “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “I Do It for Your Love.” The subsequent “A Rare Connection” focused on originals and jazz classics, and bubbled with excitement. His next recording, due out in January, will be called “Bill in Brazil.”

“Brazilian tunes can swing, too,” says the Reseda resident.

The pianist, who gained national attention when he won the 1989 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition in Washington, D.C., appears in numerous configurations--as a member of the rousing Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, as well as with the contemporary jazz group Porcupine. But he says he likes playing in trio best of all.

“That’s the most fun I have,” says Cunliffe. He performs with his trio, featuring bassist Dave Carpenter and drummer Joe LaBarbera, on Sunday at Jazz Vespers at First Lutheran Church in Glendale. (He also appears each Monday at Randell’s, where he plays Hammond B-3 organ in a group that also includes Larry Koonse, guitar, and Tom White, drums.)

“In a trio, one guy can play one note that’s different and the whole band goes somewhere else,” he says.

The thrill in performing with Carpenter and LaBarbera--who have been a steady unit for three years--is that they know each other so well the possibilities are limitless, Cunliffe says. But the pianist adds that even from the first gig, when the band worked at the Jazz Bakery three years ago, that kind of telepathic interplay was there.

“We were playing ‘In a Mellow Tone’ and, just for fun, I started playing the shout chorus for the Buddy Rich big-band version of the tune,” he says. “Within four measures, Dave and I were together, and soon, we were all playing it as if it were a rehearsed piece, as if we’d rehearsed it for hours. We played it from memory even though neither Dave--with whom I played in Buddy’s band in 1984--nor I had heard it for years.”

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Cunliffe looks forward to his appearance at First Lutheran, where he recently performed as part of saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom’s quartet. “We were on a bill with saxophonist Robert Stewart, whose music is pretty energetic, and we played mostly ballads,” he says. “Ballads in a big, echo-y building like that really work: You hit a note and it lasts a half an hour. And the audience was one of the finest I’ve ever had in my life.”

The pianist plans to include several ballads by Monk in his performance Sunday, among them, perhaps, “Reflections,” “Ask Me Now” and “ ‘Round Midnight.”

Cunliffe, who has a master’s degree in music from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and who has played with Rich, Freddie Hubbard and Art Blakey, has plenty of fans. One is pianist Cecilia Coleman, who says, “Bill is a wonderful player. He plays such great lines.”

Cunliffe would like to get his career going a bit, get out of town and perform, but he acknowledges how difficult that can be. “It takes a lot of work, and I have to be very aggressive about it,” he says. “But I like to think about music. I don’t like to think about that.”

WHERE AND WHEN

Who: Bill Cunliffe’s trio.

Location: First Lutheran Church of Glendale, 1300 E. Colorado St., Glendale.

Hours: 6:30 p.m. Sunday, at the first anniversary of Jazz Vespers.

Price: Free.

Call: (213) 245-4000.