Joe Block is a busy man. Since performing at the Chestnut Hill Community Association's Fall Frolic gala last October, the accomplished jazz pianist and composer has played nearly 70 gigs, performing as a sideman for jazz luminaries such as Wynton Marsalis, and as the bandleader for The Open Heart Trio and the Joe Block Quintet. 

While that pace might make even the most seasoned musician sweat, it's all in a day's work for Block. At 25 years old, Block is one of the jazz world's most sought-after performers and arrangers in New York's jazz scene. Luckily, curious jazz fans need not make the pilgrimage to Manhattan to hear Block play. In addition to being a musician, composer, arranger, and educator, Block is also a Chestnut Hill native. 

On Thursday, Oct. 10, Block will make a homecoming appearance to perform at Under the Moonlight: The Chestnut Hill Community Association's Fall Frolic sponsored by Temple Health Chestnut Hill Hospital, and he's bringing some impressive friends with him. 

Joining Block are veterans of the Philadelphia jazz scene Byron Landham on drums, Madison Rast on bass, and Dylan Band on saxophone. If just these veteran musicians alone were joining Block in the Philadelphia Cricket Club ballroom, it would be cause for celebration enough, but for this year's performance, the band is joined by another rising young talent to match Block's. Vocalist Kate Kortum will take the stage alongside the band. 

Growing up in Chestnut Hill, music was always a part of Block's life. In a household surrounded by music, Block began his musical journey as a child performing classical piano. During his time as a teenager at Germantown Friends School, he first heard the jazz piano of Oscar Peterson, and a love for jazz was born that would lead him to study at the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts, and eventually to a dual-degree program at The Juilliard School and Columbia University. 

In an interview with the website "All About Jazz," Block divulges that what drew him to Oscar Peterson is something in his playing that "goes beyond notes. This was a feeling and expression that I hadn't felt before." The same can easily be said of Block's own music. What's striking about Block's playing is how free it sounds, boundless and effervescent without ever losing its swing. Chalk this up to his formative years in the Philadelphia jazz scene, where, as he tells interviewer Victor L. Schermer, his teachers encouraged him to express himself "at all costs, even if what [he] was expressing was not refined or not 'correct'." 

The same instincts that make Block an exemplary player also make him an ideal bandleader and collaborator. 

And the collaborators joining him at the Fall Frolic are worth sitting up to take notice. To see  Block, Landham, Rast and Band musicians together is to feel the "beyond the notes" philosophy of performance that drew Block to jazz as a teenager.

As for Kortum, just a glimpse at her biography and you see the parallels between her and Block. The Austin, Texas native started her career as a flutist before finding her passion for jazz singing. Kortum's background as a flutist is evident in her singing, as her breath control and knack for phrasing evince a woodwind musician's precision. 

The jazz world has taken notice too. The 23-year-old's debut album "A Good Woman," released last year, has netted 3.5 million streams. A collection of jazz standards reimagined from a woman's perspective, "A Good Woman" points to the same knack for experimentation with form that informs Block and his collaborators. In performances by Block and Kortum, one can see two young musicians pushing themselves and each other to new heights.

For casual fans and jazz connoisseurs alike, Under the Moonlight provides a unique opportunity to see two rising talents of their generation share the stage together. In the best jazz musicians, one can see the lineage of talent that came before them as well as a glimpse of what is new and what is possible. It celebrates what came before by turning it on its head and finding new phrases in a well-established language. 

In that regard, the Joe Block Quintet and Kate Kortum stand at the genre's vanguard, making music that is felt first, and heard second. 

Tickets for Under the Moonlight are available for purchase at chestnuthill.org. The Chestnut Hill Community Association would like to thank Temple Health Chestnut Hill Hospital for their support.