On February 18th, 1967 Erroll performed at Carnegie Hall as part of the venue’s 75th anniversary “Diamond Jubilee” season. The performance heralded Garner’s return following an eight-year absence from the hall. His debut performance at Carnegie took place just before his split with Columbia Records in 1959, and was a smashing success as detailed by the 1959 project. In the intervening years, Garner formed his own label and released a six Octave produced albums including two concert records while touring extensively around the world to sold-out audiences.

The 1967 Carnegie Hall performance was part of a series of four shows supporting the new Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, as their press release reads: “The purpose of this series is to present some of the greatest exponents of the jazz idiom to display a broad range of their creative talents. Erroll Garner unquestioningly belongs among these jazz “immortals” together with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, who are the others being honored in the series this season.”

A separate “news release” from Martha Glaser details the lineup of Garner’s impressive new band who had assembled a little less than a year earlier to record the album That’s My Kick, which would soon be released by MGM. “Erroll Will Introduce an augmented ensemble at his Carnegie Hall concert…. Consisting of Milt Hinton on bass; Herbert Lovelle on drums; Wally Richardson on Guitar; and Jose Mangual on bongos [congas]…. This marks the first change in Garner’s concert instrumentation. Garner will also introduce several of his own compositions.”

This would be the first time audiences would hear, "That’s My Kick", “Afinidad", "Nervous Waltz" and "Passing Through". Weeks before the LP was released and would go on to win the Jazz and pop International Critics Poll for “The Best Piano Album of 1967”, and be named to the New York Times list of all-time best jazz albums.

Dan Morgenstern reviewed the show in the May 4th, 1967 issue of Downbeat Magazine saying, “Garner’s first Carnegie concert in eight years was a resounding success--popular as well as artistic.” “The high point of the concert was his two unaccompanied solos: a reflective, lovely Someone to Watch over Me and an untitled original, made up on the spot, that at times echoed King Porter Stomp and Carolina Shout… It was a condensed encyclopedia of jazz piano, an example of spontaneous invention that probably no other pianist today could equal.”

Erroll Garner at Carnegie Hall, February 1967