*** 1/2 STEPHEN SCOTT, “The Beautiful Thing,” Verve; *** BRAD MEHLDAU, “The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1,” Warner Bros.; *** GEORGE SHEARING, “Favorite Things,” Telarc

The piano is the essential jazz orchestra, an instrument with timbral richness, percussive energy and harmonic lushness. It can scream, shout and stride as easily as it can whisper, imply and float. These three new albums reveal the remarkable range of qualities that can be generated by the instrument when it is in the hands of talented artists.

Scott’s recording features the piano in settings that range from richly rhythmic quartets to hard-driving horn ensembles. In many respects, it harks back to the early work of other composer-pianists such as Horace Silver and Andrew Hill. Scott not only is a fine, driving pianist but he is also a first-rate composer who has a convincing touch with instrumental timbres. He can write funk-driven lines such as “The Heretic” and immediately counter them with a gently hovering melody such as “What Words Will Never Say.”

Equally important, he has assembled a program that is filled with unusual, sometimes offbeat touches. The theme from “I Love Lucy” is not something one expects on a jazz album, yet Scott invests it with charm and swing. Ornette Coleman’s keening “Lonely Woman” theme is transformed into a propulsive swinger featuring the alto saxophone of Kenny Garrett. On other tracks, Branford Marsalis, reaffirming his excellence as a jazz saxophonist, plays a prominent role.

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Titling an album the “Art of the Trio” is risky; adding “Vol. 1” to the title might easily be interpreted as arrogance in a young performer such as Brad Mehldau. But the playing, despite Mehldau’s obvious affection for Bill Evans, is indeed artful. Appropriately, it stresses intuitive interaction with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, regular accompanists for the last couple of years, but it also allows plenty of room for Mehldau to stretch out and display his own rapidly burgeoning improvisational abilities.

His most appealing quality is his capacity to bring an almost vocalized lyricism to the way in which he articulates a melody; it brings an irresistible romanticism to his renderings of tunes such as “Blame It on My Youth” and “I Fall in Love Too Easily.” Other standards--”I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” and “Nobody Else but Me”--emerge in solid, straight-ahead rhythmic grooves. Mehldau’s originals are not quite up to the same level, but his playing everywhere is superb. At his best, he has the breakout potential of his former musical associate Joshua Redman.

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If anyone can exploit the full orchestral capabilities of the piano, it’s a veteran player such as George Shearing. “Favorite Things” is a solo album, and he uses it to present a series of tunes as classically styled etudes and rhapsodies.

This is thoughtful music, occasionally leavened--in pieces such as Stephen Sondheim’s “Anyone Can Whistle”--with the lighthearted wit that has always been Shearing’s stock in trade. Others take different paths: “My Favorite Things,” for example, becomes a kind of Scarlatti sonata; “Angel Eyes” is dark and brooding, touched with traces of Liszt, and the interpretation of “Taking a Chance on Love” was inspired, Shearing says, by the Brahms E-major Intermezzo.

It’s fun for the listener, in fact, to guess the source of Shearing’s inspiration for each of his readings. Fascinating performances, all of them, they manage to walk the tightrope between classical music and jazz without a single misstep.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).