The Taylor Eigsti Trio

When you pull up the home page of Taylor Eigsti's website, there's a photo of the 22-year-old pianist wearing a leather jacket with a hoodie underneath. Hate to say it, but the guy looks like more like a Backstreet Boy than a jazz pianist who's been nominated for two Grammys. Eigsti's been on the scene since his preteen days, and after doing four albums on indie labels, he just released his most recent, Lucky to Be Me, on the revered Concord jazz label. With highly respected cats such as bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash playing on the disc, it's obvious what kind of street cred Eigsti has already built up. And while he might have honed his chops on Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, you can also hear quite a bit of Brad Mehldau in his playing. Behold the new face of jazz.