As Philippe Quint spent half an hour playing five selections, the cabbies clapped and whistled. They danced in the aisles, hips gyrating like tipsy belly dancers. “Magic fingers, magic fingers,” one called out. Another grabbed the hand of Quint’s publicist and did what looked like a merengue across the front of the “stage”.

Afterward, the virtuoso was mobbed by drivers seeking his autograph on dollar bills, napkins and cab receipts. “It was so pleasing to see people dancing - that never happens,” said Quint, 34, a Grammy-nominated classical violinist. “These people, they work so hard, I doubt they get a chance to get out to Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center.” So, Quint took Carnegie Hall to them, in a miniconcert that was his way of expressing a simple sentiment: Thank you.

On April 20, Quint accidentally left a Stradivarius violin, valued at $4 million, in the back seat of a cab that he took from the airport to Manhattan on his return from a performance in Dallas. After several frantic hours, the Newark police told him the violin had been found and was at the airport taxi stand with the cabdriver who had taken him home. The two connected, and the violin was returned.

“Anybody out here would have done the same thing,” said the driver, Mohammed Khalil, waving a hand at his laughing, dancing colleagues. The city of Newark awarded Khalil, who has driven a taxi here since 1985, a Medallion, its highest honor. Quint gave him a $100 tip when the violin was returned, but he wanted to do more, so he arranged for Tuesday’s concert in a parking-lot-turned-theater.

Clad in black, with his dark hair falling over his closed eyes, Quint dazzled the crowd with a theme from the movie “The Red Violin”; Gershwin’s “It Ain’t Necessarily So”; a Paganini Variation; and the Meditation from Massenet’s opera “Thais”. Joined by his friend Michael Bacon, a guitarist (and the brother of the actor Kevin Bacon), Quint played a piece they had composed, “Seduction Blues”.

Occasionally, a silhouetted plane would glide by overhead, providing a rumbling accompaniment to the music. Despite that, Quint’s audience seemed moved by his gesture. “I like that he came here. And, yeah, the music, I like it ,” Ebenezer Sarpeh, 46, said as she burst into spontaneous applause on occasions yelling “magic fingers”.

Afterward, Quint posed for photographs with Khalil, who gave him a ride noticing he was in no condition to go home by himself. He said Khalil told him, “‘Why don’t I give you a ride home?’ I said, ‘No, no, it’s OK, I’ll take a bus, I’ll take another taxi. He said, ‘No, I’m happy to give you a ride back, because you're my last customer.’” As he had planned for months, Khalil retired from driving a cab the day he took Quint home.