Tom Roberts is one of the leading exponents of ragtime and stride piano in the world today.   He is the master of all the early jazz piano styles and his performances include ragtime, boogie woogie, New Orleans jazz, and Harlem style Stride Piano the later of which was performed in the 1920s and 1930s by Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, and Willie "The Lion" Smith.   Highly virtuosic, these styles of music are currently capably performed by only a handful of pianists.

The Tulsa audience was wowed a few years ago when Tom shared the stage with renowned composer and ragtime pianist, David Thomas Roberts, in an all Jelly Roll Morton piano program.   Just before his Tulsa performance, Tom arranged and performed the music for the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator about the life of Howard Hughes and starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Tom has performed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Statler Brothers Show on TNN, and A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Kiellor.   He has arranged music for the syndicated PRI show Riverwalk Jazz, Live from the Landing with the Jim Cullum Jazz Band.   He played at New York's Carnegie Hall in 2003 with Skitch Henderson and again with the New York Pops.   He was featured in 2003 in solo with Dick Hyman at the prestigious Jazz In July series at New York's 92nd St. Y in a concert entitled "The Lion, The Lamb, and Lucky".

Roberts was pianist for Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks in New York City.   He was pianist and musical director for Leon Redbone for six years and is featured on his new album Anytime, on Verve.   Originally from Pittsburgh, Tom played in all the major jazz clubs in the French Quarter and on the riverboats of New Orleans when he lived there from 1989 to 1994.

The last five years have been spent researching and restoring the music of pianist Luckey Roberts, one of the founders of the stride style and teacher of such notables as Duke Ellington and George Gershwin.   Tom's most recent project was an extended choral work using the poetry of Harlem renaissance writer Langston Hughes.   The Bach Choir of Pittsburgh performed this work in the spring of 2006.

Tom Roberts has recorded over 30 compact discs including, Roberts Plays Roberts, devoted to the music of Luckey Roberts and In the Lion's Den, featuring the music of Willie "The Lion" Smith.