Joe Alterman, a 31-year-old Jewish man from Atlanta, has carved out a space for himself among the jazz piano greats he grew up idolizing. After seeing Oscar Peterson perform live at Birdland, an iconic jazz venue, and going on to earn a Master's Degree in Music, Joe found himself on the same stage. Nat Hentoff - widely considered the most influential writer in jazz history - wrote his final piece for the Wall Street Journal about Joe. Speaking about that article, Hentoff said, "[Joe] is really the personification of the past of jazz - he's really deep into that -, the present of jazz - he has his own voice - and that leads him into the future of jazz... [he] makes recordings that are 'beyond category' because they're timeless." Bill Nigut called Joe earlier in the pandemic to discuss Joe's background and life in quarantine.