A five, six, seven, eight…come on down and swing along to the best ragtime, stride, and jazz the Big Apple has to offer. With special performances on select Thursdays and sprinkled spontaneously throughout the season.

Joel Forrester is the composer of more than 1600 tunes, a versatile and accomplished jazz pianist, leader of his own quintet and prolific recording artist. He has performed in an extraordinary diversity of settings – from large ensembles to a duet setting with a tap dancer! His playing draws from stride, boogie-woogie, bebop, trance and what he likes to call ‘salon pieces’ but each composition bears the stamp of this most individual artist.

Joel composed the theme for National Public Radio’s “FRESH AIR with Terry Gross. The theme has been broadcast more than 200,000 times in the last three years – it’s been played and heard coast-to-coast more often than any other jazz composition in American radio (both public and private stations) for the last 28 years! The theme from FRESH AIR can also be heard on his Ride Symbol CD, “STOP THE MUSIC”, a collection that showcases Joel’s brilliance as a solo pianist.