When your grandfather is Grammy-winning Cuban pianist and composer Bebo Valdez and your father famed Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger Chucho Valdez, naturally you decide to be a baseball player.

So it was with Chuchito Valdez, the now-renowned pianist who will be playing on Thursday, July 16, at 7 and 9 p.m. at the Whaling Church in Edgartown.

Chuchito told Jazz.com that it was his mother, the singer Mercedes, who encouraged him to do whatever he wanted; by 13, Chuchito realized that was to play piano. “I loved baseball but I was drawn to the piano,” he said.

Asked about the amazing resemblance he bears to his father, Chuchito said, “There is no getting around the fact that we are the spitting image of each other. My face, my body, I look exactly like him. But I don’t feel any pressure.”

Chuchito — his given name is Luis Jesus Valdez, but there was no escaping he was Chucho’s boy — is based in Cancun with his own Afro-Cuban jazz ensemble, but is performing solo on the Vineyard. Expect his trademark physicality and flamboyance on the keys. The Chicago Tribune said his playing “reinvigorated age old Cuban musical forms, the venerable cha-cha-cha and mambo standards revitalized by the muscular virtuosity of a mostly younger generation of players.”

Tickets are $25 in advance (worldpianosummit.com) and $30 at the door. Seniors and students $20 at the door.