Roxy Bar Presents: Pianist Michael Garin

Michael Garin plays a solo resident-pianist set at Roxy Bar. The evening is built around his piano-led stream of songs and references, with a cocktail-and-oysters backdrop rather than a conventional band performance. The Roxy describes a format that blurs pianist and DJ: a deliberately wide-ranging sequence that can move among Shaggy, Om Kalthum, Rossini, Jobim, Frank Zappa and Raymond Scott. Requests, comic asides and even tap dancing from the piano bench are part of the set’s established vocabulary.

Originally from Greenbelt, Maryland, Garin has been a fixture of New York nightlife for decades. He is a Drama Desk Award winner for co-creating and co-starring in Song of Singapore, and his work spans songwriting, singing, poetry, acting and song-and-dance performance. His résumé includes Elaine’s, the Monkey Bar, the Rainbow Room and Limelight’s VIP Room; available sources also note work with or performances for Frank Zappa, James Chance, David Lee Roth and Kool & the Gang, plus acting stints with Spike Lee. Will Friedwald called him “perhaps the most compelling musical omnivore I’ve ever encountered,” citing his ability to bring contemporary pop and rap into contact with Stephen Sondheim and Noël Coward.