Roxy Bar Presents: Pianist Michael Garin

Michael Garin, the Roxy Hotel’s resident pianist, plays at Roxy Bar on this Friday evening. His ongoing Tuesday through Saturday engagement is presented as a post-work-and-school piano set with room for requests and audience participation: Garin sometimes invites children to play along, jokes that he will be “in his office” taking requests, and may tap dance from the piano bench. The musical thread moves freely among Shaggy, Om Kalthum, Rossini, Jobim, Zappa, and Raymond Scott, treating the piano as part performance, part selector’s booth.

A Drama Desk Award winner, Garin has been a fixture of New York nightlife for decades. His résumé includes Elaine’s, the Monkey Bar, the Rainbow Room, and Limelight’s VIP Room; he also hosted midnight burlesque shows in the mid-1990s that helped launch the burlesque revival. Beyond piano, he has worked as a songwriter, singer, poet, actor, and song-and-dance performer, co-creating and co-starring in the environmental musical Song of Singapore, and appearing in acting roles with Spike Lee. The Roxy describes his approach as a “goofy, stylish, and very smart stream of musical consciousness,” blurring pianist and D.J. while bringing together listeners of different ages.