Music For The People: Caelan Cardello’s ‘Chapter One' On Vinyl Does The Rising Pianist Right

OUT NOW ON VINYL VIA MICHAEL FREMER’S LIAM RECORDS & DISTRIBUTED BY ACOUSTIC SOUNDS — CD/DIGITAL VIA JAZZ BIRD RECORDS

When you flip over a new vinyl copy of 25-year-old pianist Caelan Cardello’s 2025 debut album, Chapter One — his first studio release following 2023’s Rufus Reid Presents Caelan Cardello, recorded live at the 40-seat West Side showroom Klavierhaus NYC — you encounter an intriguing caveat.

Despite being executive produced by Michael Fremer — audiophile leader and Tracking Angle editor-in-chief — and despite a no-corners-cut production chain that includes Duke Markos as mixer, Marc Urselli at Audio Confidential as mastering engineer, Dave McNair at McNair Mastering as lacquer cutter, and Quality Record Pressings in Salina, Kansas for pressing, Fremer is explicit in his liner notes.

“Chapter One is not an audiophile release,” he writes of the album, recorded at Trading 8s Recording Studio in Paramus, New Jersey. “It sounds great, and it rocks, but it was not recorded in a grand space and captured with a Blumlein microphone pair. The studio was small, the Steinway large, and the trio played loudly for the fun of it. For the groove of it. They had a blast playing and you’ll have as much fun listening.”

That framing proves essential to understanding Chapter One, which arrived on vinyl December 8 via Fremer’s imprint Liam Records, following its digital and CD release last August on Jazz Bird Records (and available at Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct and Elusive Disc). Working in a rough-and-tumble trio format with bassist Jonathon Muir-Cotton and drummer Domo Branch, Cardello — whose mastery of swing and pianistic joy nods to Oscar Peterson — hits all the marks: playful, inventive, deeply grounded, with generous helpings of blues, funk, and soul embedded in his musical vocabulary.

The same is true of the band as a whole, across a program that balances originals — “Gone Fishin’,” “Steppin’ Up,” “Don’t Look Back,” “Where Do We Go Now,” and “Music for the People” — with carefully chosen repertoire: Cole Porter’s “All of You,” Cedar Walton’s “Groundwork,” and Thelonious Monk’s “Ask Me Now.”

Programmatically, the differences between the digital and vinyl editions are meaningful. The LP includes a solo piano rendition of Monk’s “Ask Me Now,” exclusive to the vinyl configuration, while several tracks — including “John Neely,” “Motherhood,” and “Solidarity” — were omitted from vinyl due to time constraints. As such, Chapter One exists as two complementary listening experiences, both of which reward deep attention.

Cardello was born in 2000 in Teaneck, New Jersey. His father was a percussionist with an interest in hand drums and classic R&B, including the music of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Cardello began piano study at a young age and, by middle school, was dividing his time between jazz and classical piano.

In 2012, he entered the Jazz House Kids program in nearby Montclair, where he remained through his 2018 graduation, gaining early ensemble and performance experience. While still a teenager, Cardello began monthly lessons with pianist Fred Hersch in 2015.

He later attended William Paterson University, studying with mentors including Bill Charlap and Harold Mabern, before completing his undergraduate degree in 2022. Mabern’s composition “John Neely” appears on Chapter One. Cardello earned his master’s degree from the Juilliard School in 2025.

Along the way, he received several early-career distinctions, including the New Jersey Governor’s Award in Arts Education, the BMI Future Jazz Master Scholarship, and finalist and semifinalist placements at the American Pianists Awards and the Herbie Hancock International Jazz Piano Competition. By his early 20s, Cardello was performing regularly at New York venues such as Smalls, Mezzrow, Minton’s, Dizzy’s Club, and Jazz at Lincoln Center; he later relocated to Harlem, where he resides today.

His working trio with bassist Jonathon Muir-Cotton and drummer Domo Branch formed prior to Chapter One: Cardello first met Muir-Cotton at a jam session, while Branch dates back to his high school years through the Mingus competition circuit. The album was recorded across two rounds of sessions at Trading 8s in late 2023 and January 2024, with pianist Isaiah Thompson serving as co-producer.

Soaking in Chapter One in Fremer’s home listening room, the crampedness of Trading 8s’ recording space melted away — to uninformed ears, it could easily have been mistaken for a much larger room.

“The original mix, though pretty good, needed a special, more sympathetic mixing hand,” Fremer writes. “We sent the stems to Duke Markos, who engineered and mixed the Rufus/Caelan encounter, and he produced a near miracle.”

We listened on Fremer’s typical setup: his Wilson Benesch Prime Meridian turntable with a Graviton Ti tonearm and Hana Umami Black moving-coil cartridge. The overall soundfield felt natural and unforced, clearly benefiting from a second, more considered mix. Cardello's piano sounds plummy and dynamic; Muir-Cotton's bass subtly cuts through like it should; Branch's drums are given ample room to breathe.

As a vinyl-only offering, “Ask Me Now” alone makes the LP worth owning — not just streaming — tender, biting, lyrical, and infused with an appropriately Monkian dry humor, its close-miked overtones smearing and permeating the soundfield.

Having reported on Cardello previously for JazzTimes, I was already familiar with this record. What struck me on returning to it is that I’m still not tired of it. (I asked Fremer if he was, having financed, produced, and listened to it innumerable times: “Not at all,” he replied.) Stepping away for months and coming back, it still feels fresh, enthusiastic, and vital — as well as wonderfully listenable, with zero pretense.

The rollicking closing track, “Music for the People,” says it all. This is inviting, populist music, imbued with a pervasive, delicious feeling of fun. You’ll get a kick out of it in any format — but if you’re thinking of springing for this Liam Records pressing, it reveals subtle new dimensions of a head-turning new piano talent on the scene.