Zeitlin plays Gershwin

It’s hard to overstate pianist Denny Zeitlin’s credentials as a jazz giant. A dauntless improviser with a commanding touch, he’s led a series of superlative trios since uber-talent scout John Hammond signed him to Columbia Records in the mid-1960s.

As a composer, he’s written an extensive body of tunes distinguished by dramatic rhythmic variety and dense harmonic forms. His gift for spinning intriguing melodies marked by burnished lyricism was celebrated by fellow piano master Bill Evans, who recorded numerous versions of Zeitlin’s ballad “Quiet Now.” The fact that his musical career unfolded while he served on the faculty at UC San Francisco as a professor of clinical psychiatry makes Zeitlin’s bandstand accomplishments all the more impressive.

Over the past five years, he’s found an ideal spot for his rhapsodic solo recitals at Oakland’s Piedmont Piano. Zeitlin kicked off his run of thematic shows in 2014 with a program of Wayne Shorter’s jazz standards, a performance captured on the album “Early Wayne” (Sunnyside), and followed with concerts focusing on music by Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Billy Strayhorn. He returns to the store-cum-venue for two shows Dec. 7 devoted to the music of George Gershwin, a passionate musical relationship dating back to his early childhood when he was “utterly transported” listening to 78’s of “An American In Paris.”

“In grade school, I was playing ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and in high school and college, the whole Gershwin songbook at jazz gigs,” says Zeitlin, 80, whose latest album, “Wishing on the Moon,” is a gorgeous concert recording featuring his longtime trio with Buster Williams and Matt Wilson.

“Harmony, melody, and rhythm are always so fresh in Gershwins’s music, with a generous dollop of blues. No wonder jazz musicians love to play his tunes. It would be hard to imagine better springboards into improvisation.”

Details: 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.; Piedmont Piano, Oakland; $25; 510-547-8188, www.piedmontpiano.com.

Andrew Gilbert, Correspondent