Roxy Bar Presents: Pianist Michael Garin

Roxy Bar presents its resident pianist, Michael Garin, for an early-evening live set. Garin’s program is built as a continuous piano-led stream rather than a conventional recital, moving among material associated with Shaggy, Om Kalthum, Rossini, Jobim, Zappa and Raymond Scott. He also takes requests and may fold in comic, theatrical touches, including announcements and tap dancing from the piano bench. The result is a post-work musical stop with cocktails and oysters close at hand.

Garin has been a fixture of New York nightlife for decades. A Drama Desk Award winner, he has worked at Elaine’s, The Monkey Bar, The Rainbow Room and Limelight’s VIP Room, and hosted midnight burlesque shows in the mid-1990s that helped launch the burlesque revival. He co-created and co-starred in Song of Singapore, the environmental musical for which he received his Drama Desk Award, and has also acted in Spike Lee projects. A pianist, songwriter, singer, poet, actor and song-and-dance performer, Garin has developed a practice that crosses between piano performance and DJ-style programming. He also writes daily promotional poems in an Ogden Nash style for his engagements.