Lehigh Valley jazz legend Dave Roper holds court at Miller Symphony Hall as part of the “Jazz Upstairs” series with the first set kicking off at 7:30 p.m. July 21 in the Rodale Room.

The veteran jazz pianist has been performing in the trio configuration since his graduation from Lafayette College in 1960.

Roper notes, “After Lafayette, rather than look for corporate job, I found I could play piano three or four nights a week with a bass and drummer.” He plays solo piano “on rare occasions.”

His day job was teaching English at Emmaus High School, a position he held for nearly 30 years. Roper had a steady gig at the King George Inn every weekend for 15 years. He plays the first Thursday of each month in the Hotel Bethlehem’s Tap Room in his 14th year of that engagement.

Roper’s trios tend to be long-term affairs. In his many decades of performing, Roper has had only three drummers and four bassists. His trio now features Paul Rostock on bass and Gary Rissmiller on drums. Both are on the music faculty at Moravian College.

Roper recalls, “Maybe 10 years ago, Moravian invited me to play with Moravian Big Band and then with a trio. I asked if it would be my trio and they said I would be playing with Paul and Gary. They were so good that I decided they would be my next trio.”

The interplay among the three is seamless. The drums and bass follow Roper’s flow flawlessly. “That’s what they do,” he says. “They make it easy for me. If I go astray, they’ll go astray with me.”

For the “Jazz Upstairs” concert, Tommy Crist will join the Roper Trio on vocals for a few numbers, notably “Georgia On My Mind,” which he frequently sings with the group at Hotel Bethlehem.

According to Roper, listeners can expect to hear, “… standards and the American songbook with a handful of newer things and a little classical music mixed in.”

Roper cites his major musical influences as Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson, especially mentioning Garner’s “Concert by the Sea” album (1958) as an early influence.

Roper emphasizes that, although he’s performed thousands of concerts, “They’ve been mostly in bars and restaurants, not in Symphony Hall.”

Tickets: Miller Symphony Hall Box Office, 23 N. Sixth St., Allentown; allentown-symphony.org; 610-432-6715