Atria La Jolla senior living community has a piano man, Joe Barry, a veteran of the craft who regales residents regularly playing weeknights after dinner.

The 87-year-old Barry continues to tickle the ivories weekly for his friends and neighbors at Atria La Jolla at 4025 Pulitzer Place. “I only have done it voluntarily,” said Barry of his impromptu piano playing during a weeknight performance at Atria on April 4.

Barry’s musical experience goes way back. At age 7, he started learning piano. At 12, he was leading the chorus at his church. At 22, he taught English and music to elementary students in Turkey. At 57, Joe started a music program for elementary students that continues today under the leadership of the La Jolla Music Society.

The piano man admits playing has been a lifelong passion and lifestyle, which has led to a better life and adventure traveling the globe. “I was a church pianist at the age of 10 in East Los Angeles,” he said adding, “I went from East L.A. poor to Harvard. Then I was a missionary in Turkey. Then I came back to California and was involved in the Mexican-American Chicano movement in the 1960s at UCLA.”

Of Jewish and Mexican extraction, Barry has traveled worldwide playing and teaching piano. He taught at Paris-Sorbonne University for eight years. One of the accomplishments he’s most proud of is becoming a music teacher locally at Sherman Elementary, where he developed a program teaching the basics and music appreciation to students from low-income families. From 1997 until now, La Jolla Music Society has taken full responsibility for funding and continuing to develop Barry’s program.

Barry doesn’t take requests when he’s playing. Rather, he has a voluminous playlist of some 350 songs from all periods and genres scrawled by hand in a mini notebook that he draws from.

Playing while he’s being interviewed, Barry re-creates his playlist of that evening’s performance. He plays a medley of songs including “Ain’t She Sweet,” “When The Saints Go Marching In” to “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” often singing, at one point in French.

Asked if he enjoys performing, Barry responded: “I get higher than a kite. As soon as I come through the door, if there’s a song in my head – I play it.”

To improve at playing piano, Barry noted “You’ve got to work at it and keep working at it.” He pointed out that a good pianist can interject emotion into their music. Barry plays a portion of a dramatic song illustrating the point. “That is a question,” he said midway through his song adding, “And here is the answer,” (while continuing to play), shifting back into a bridge tying the musical work together.

You can have a conversation with your piano? “Absolutely,” replies Barry.

What’s the key to performing piano live? “You have to be an entertainer, not a performer,” replied Barry adding, “The difference is I have eye contact with everybody. I have to be able to see them (the audience) and sing to them. You’ve got to reach in and get a little bit back. If you don’t put anything in – you don’t get anything back. It’s interactive. If it’s not two ways, it’s nothing.”

And you feed off the audience’s response? “You could see I was,” Barry answered.

Barry has said playing the piano and leading his audience in the song “makes my life more meaningful.” He added he most enjoys playing music that solicits memories – show tunes and songs of past generations. He breaks into playing part of “Yesterday” by the Beatles, which he follows by playing “Beautiful Dreamer,” one of American composer Stephen Foster’s most memorable ballads.

And then Barry is finished playing … until next time.

For more information about Atria La Jolla, visit atriaseniorliving.com.