Billy Stritch has always embodied a suave elegance that evokes another era before tuxedos were replaced by ripped jeans and before cocktail hour was replaced by Netflix binges. His encyclopedic knowledge of The Great American Songbook is prodigious. He not only knows all the songs, he knows the history of them all. He is as stylish as the great pianists of that era: Oscar Peterson, Marion McPartland, Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, and Dave Grusin. He is the upholder of a tradition that includes Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Doris Day, and Mel Tormé.