CINCOTTI SHOWS TALENT, POTENTIAL.

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

An air of anticipation filled the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday night, when rising jazz pianist and singer Peter Cincotti delivered a program of standards and original material, some of it freshly minted.

Cincotti is a 21-year-old New Yorker often hailed as his generation's Harry Connick Jr. Like Connick, Cincotti has matinee-idol good looks and is gingerly exploring movie acting. But though his playing may be comparable to Connick's - both have a hard-driving sound enriched by prodigious technique - his singing lacks the range and nuance of his elder rival.

His voice seems not fully formed yet, which may explain why he favored arrangements saturated in Las Vegas-type glitz, the better to conceal callowness. Nearly half the program included songs from Cincotti's new album, ``On the Moon,'' and not all of them succeeded in live performance. Cole Porter's ``I Love Paris'' was sizzlingly cool, but an ill-conceived arrangement of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ``Bali Hai'' emerged as unctuous and practically campy.

Yet the evening's highlights were iconic tunes put across superbly: a mellifluous and accomplished take on Dizzy Gillespie's ``A Night in Tunisia'' and a touching rendition of Eddy Arnold's ``You Don't Know Me,'' the Ray Charles signature.

Cincotti's own contributions - including ``On the Moon'' and ``On Stage Tonight'' - were handicapped by jejune lyrics that charitable types might characterize as Billy Joel-esque. And he didn't help his case by singing ``Make It Out Alive'' as if channeling Christopher Cross.

But what Cincotti lacked as a crooner, he made up for at the keyboard, where fearless runs and thumping chords justified his reputation as a talent to heed. His band - Mark McLean on drums, Scott Kreitzer on tenor saxophone, Rob Reich on guitar and, especially, Barak Mori on acoustic and electric bass - proved similarly gifted.