New Sounds the Old Way : Listen to three young guns and you’ll find something different: an unamplified keyboard. : Call it jazz piano, unplugged.

Who was to know, that night in the early ‘60s, when Joe Zawinul strolled onstage to dig into some soul sounds with the Cannonball Adderley group, that a sonic revolution was about to take place?

Probably no one in the overflow crowd waiting only to groove with the music. But a sonic revolution it was. And it occurred with startling simplicity.

Instead of sitting down at his customary grand piano, Zawinul turned to a small box with an attached piano keyboard and touched the keys, and the era of electric jazz and the electric jazz piano began.

It wasn’t bad--at first. Zawinul had a knack for generating soulful, funk-driven sounds out of his Hohner and Fender Rhodes instruments--sounds that were intrinsic to several of the Adderley band’s biggest hits.

The electric revolution continued a few years later with the arrival of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” and “In a Silent Way.” These two recordings basically legitimized electric keyboards as members of the jazz ensemble. And when Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea began to use them regularly, electric keyboards became the instrument of choice for many young players. The traditional, non-electric piano--revered by most but abandoned by many for its unwieldiness--was heard less and less, and jazz, like rock, became plugged-in music.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s the revolution continued, but the music declined. Gone were the feeling, the sensitivity and the touch of the acoustic instruments, replaced by recording after recording of wallpaper jazz, overflowing with the tinkling predictability of keyboard-controlled samplers, synthesizers and sequencers.

But now the plug is out of the wall and that plain old unamplified grand piano--the one we started to call “acoustic” to distinguish it from synthesized, sampled and electric pianos--is back, and the small, persistent lineage of musicians who kept the piano alive has finally begun to expand. Big time. It’s probably not even hyperbole to say that we are now experiencing a remarkable renaissance of the jazz piano. Not the Hohner, not the Fender Rhodes, not the Kurzweil--but the plain old bulky acoustic instrument.

Call the new era “jazz piano unplugged.”

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In fact, it’s hard to recall a time when jazz was blessed with so many talented, relatively young pianists all concentrating on the acoustic instrument.

The names unfold in a rapidly lengthening list that includes Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Marcus Roberts, Geri Allen, Benny Green, Kai Akagi, Renee Rosnes, Geoff Keezer, Kenny Drew Jr. and Michel Petrucciani. As they have arrived, players like Corea and Hancock have once again begun to discover the appeal of their original instrument (although Zawinul still appears to be lured to the fascinations of his synthesizers).

But three names among this group of new piano lions stand out both for the musical talent and for the unprecedented ride they’re being given by record companies as acts that have the potential to reach an audience well beyond the limits of jazz. These artists--Cyrus Chestnut, Jacky Terrasson and Stephen Scott--all have albums in release this month. Despite their generational similarities, the musical differences among the three are striking--and illustrate the uncommon diversity of contemporary jazz piano.

The music of Chestnut, 25, is as ebullient and outgoing as he is. Terrasson, 29, son of a French father and an American mother, plays in a fashion that reflects his multicultural background, bringing a colorful perspective to familiar tunes. Scott, 25, is a product of the jazz mainstream, his playing an extension of his belief in the relevance of the jazz that preceded him.

Chestnut and Terrasson are touring to support their new releases, and both have been the recipients of a robust media blitz.

On Tuesday, Terrasson performed a one-night showcase at the Troubadour, a venue more associated with pop than jazz. Last month, Chestnut’s record company, Atlantic, brought him to town for a one-night press performance at a bar called the Derby in the Los Feliz area, an unusual promotion.

Mirabella magazine profiled both pianists in November, and late last year Terrasson was identified in a New York Times article as one of 30 artists, age 30 and under, whom the paper’s critics chose as among those most likely to change the culture for the next 30 years.

“I love all the attention,” Terrasson says. “It’s kind of a challenge when the New York Times includes me with a group of important people under 30. What I like best about it is that it’s not just a jazz audience, and I like the idea of being able to touch the public.”

“At the very least,” he adds with a laugh, “it might bring a few more people into the clubs when we play.”

Since the practices of marketing and promotion have not been nearly as common in the jazz world as they are in pop music--sales numbers have not usually justified the expenditures--the attention being paid to these players appears to underscore a record company belief that acoustic mainstream jazz may once again be on the verge of commercial viability.

There is at least the outside possibility that the Kenny G’s of jazz may be facing some competition from an unexpected quarter--the traditional mainstream jazz that the saxophonist abandoned in his Pied Piper quest for success.

Scott sees it in broader terms: “There is a new energy and a new excitement. I believe the music is approaching another high period.”

T ake a look at Cyrus Chestnut sitting down to play and it will instantly become apparent that the old Steinways (and Yamahas and Bosendorfers, to name only a few) are very much alive and well. The round and cherubic musician--a swiftly emerging new star--advances to the keyboard with the easy but respectful reverence of a priest at an altar, his chubby hands and surprisingly short fingers lovingly caressing the long lineup of black and white keys.

Eclectically educated, the Baltimore native studied at the Peabody Conservatory while backing church choirs. His road experience includes gigs with Slide Hampton, Jon Hendricks and the Marsalises, and he has recorded with acts ranging from Christian McBride to opera diva Kathleen Battle.

For Chestnut, the piano is the vehicle to carry him down his chosen creative road.

“I want to get to the place where I can simply play music and interpret it my own way,” he says, “whether it be a very swinging Charlie Parker melody, or maybe even an Impressionistic Debussy piece.”

On his second Atlantic album, “The Dark Before the Dawn” ( see review, above ), he does precisely that with a selection of material that includes everything from soul-jazz and funk to standards and--appropriately for the piano--a work based upon one of the J. S. Bach Two-Part Inventions.

Then there’s Terrasson, the visible mix of French and American characteristics, in his open gaze making him a prime casting candidate for a Godard gangster film. Terrasson, raised in Paris until he was 19, was a scholarship student at Boston’s Berklee School of Music before he pursued a career as a sideman with such artists as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Barney Wilen, Betty Carter and Arthur Taylor. In 1993, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk Competition. Angular and lean, he plays with a measured touch, continually seeking novel ways to explore the piano’s almost limitless resources for the production of sound and rhythm.

“The acoustic sound is exactly what I want,” he says. “I think one of the reasons is because I’ve always kind of treated the piano like a percussion instrument. I love interacting with the drums, especially, but also with the bass--my whole trio. And I could never have that kind of interaction on an electronic instrument.”

Terrasson’s interaction with drummer Leon Parker on the pianist’s eponymously titled first outing as a leader (on Blue Note) accentuates the piano-percussion connections. Parker brings a revolutionary view to jazz drums by employing only those elements of the traditional kit--cymbal, snare, hi-hat--that he feels are applicable to a given composition. With Terrasson, the result is a set of uncommon renderings of standards such as “My Funny Valentine,” “For Once in My Life” and “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

“We took a little bit of a chance by doing ‘I Love Paris’ with a rockish sort of beat,” Terrasson says, “but that was what felt right when I started working with the tune. And I knew that with Leon I could take the improvisations into something original by having the percussive sound of the piano interact with his drums.”

S cott is the intellectual and his torian of the three, the player who is most attached to the continuing stream of jazz. He was a Juilliard student by the age of 12, and his short, prolific career already embraces stints with the Harper Brothers, Jon Hendricks, the Marsalises and Joe Henderson.

As with Terrasson, Scott’s third album, “Renaissance” (Verve), deals with a group of standards--”Poinciana,” “Solitude” and “Spring Is Here” among them. But Scott deals with the songs from a somewhat more traditional point of view, eager to stamp it with his own mark but equally determined to, in his description, “consider musical options that would fit the tune, open the door to a new set of possibilities, yet remain musical.”

Wynton Marsalis once said that “the sound of jazz is an acoustic sound,” and the return to prominence of the acoustic grand piano clearly appears to confirm his statement.

“I think what it comes down to mostly,” Terrasson says, “is that what I’m looking for is what all musicians want--to get my own sound, to try to be myself when I play. The players I admire the most are the ones who get their own sound, who play themselves. Can you do that on something other than an acoustic instrument? I can’t speak for anyone else. But for me, the grand piano’s the way to go.”*