Joe Block

Joe Block is a pianist and composer who grew up in Philadelphia, where he trained at the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts before completing the Columbia University and Juilliard School dual-degree program (Columbia BA 2021, Juilliard MM 2022). His teachers have included Frank Kimbrough, Ted Rosenthal, Bruce Barth, Marc Cary, and Geoffrey Keezer. He received the ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award in 2024 and was a semifinalist in the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition. A Steinway Artist, he leads the Joe Block Quintet and the Open Heart Trio and serves as musical director of the Future of Jazz Orchestra, with a style that draws on Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, and Duke Ellington. His solo album Solo Piano, Vol. 1, recorded at Sear Sound in New York, was released in 2026.