Roxy Bar Presents: Pianist Michael Garin

Michael Garin plays a solo resident-pianist set at Roxy Bar, part of his Tuesday through Saturday run at the room. Expect a piano-led program that treats the songbook as open territory: the venue describes Garin moving among Shaggy, Om Kalthum, Rossini, Jobim, Frank Zappa and Raymond Scott, with a musical flow that deliberately blurs pianist and DJ. He may sing as well as play, and his shows can include requests and his own comic asides. This is less a conventional recital than a continually reshaped set built around his piano.

Originally from Greenbelt, Maryland, Garin has been a New York nightlife mainstay for decades. He is a Drama Desk Award winner for co-creating and co-starring in the environmental musical Song of Singapore, and his résumé includes Elaine’s, the Monkey Bar, the Rainbow Room and Limelight’s VIP Room. Garin has said he performed “for and with” Frank Zappa, James Chance, David Lee Roth and Kool & the Gang. Writing about his range across jazz, pop, classical, chamber music, contemporary pop and rap, critic Will Friedwald called him “perhaps the most compelling musical omnivore I’ve ever encountered,” particularly noting his unexpected combinations of pop and rap with Sondheim and Noël Coward.