Discussing Jazz and the Different Elements

¶ … Spike Wilner Trio at Smalls

This is a review of the Spike Wilner Trio's performance at Smalls on December 1st, 2015. Smalls is located in Greenwich Village and is well-known as being a good jazz club. It is small as the name of the club suggests and in the basement but it is a good place to go to hear music. Spike plays the piano, while the other two members of the trio play accompany: Tyler Mitchell plucking beats on the bass and Anthony Pinciotti helping Tyler to beat out the rhythm on the drums.

There was a lot of syncopation I noticed immediately coming from their music as it would start and stop and pick up in an unexpected direction. Spike is very good at playing ragtime on the piano, but of course he is good at playing anything and the tones and textures that come from the trio are rich and full of complexity. I recognize the piano thumping style of the ragtime music and there was even a sample of the Maple Leaf Rag, which is a classic and I instantly recognized this, as it is something that appears in a lot of silent movies. The trio ripped off a few ragtime melodies like this but they also did them in a new way that made them seem unique and somewhat improvised at times and it would seem like the rhythm would pick up and launch into more of a jazz proper sound before returning after a few minutes of improvisation back to the initial rag. This made it even more exciting and interesting to hear.

I recognized the call-and-response element of jazz as well as syncopation. The drummer would get going, tapping out a furious beat and then relent and allow the piano to pick it up and carry it for a minute and meanwhile the bass would be flowing so there was free conversation back and forth between the three instruments. The polyrhythmic sound was also discernible as there were moments when the bass would be playing at a slower more methodical rhythm while the piano would be hyperactive and the drums would be even more relentless attempting to outdo all of them combined. Syncopation was definitely an aspect that I noted instantly, the way that the rhythms and melodies would smash and collide, drive up and down the scales and then stop short and then launch again with seeming reckless but joyous abandon. There was also a lot of solo and collective improvisation. Spike on the piano would get going and let off a flurry of notes and sounds up and down the keyboard at the same time that the drummer would explode with some beats that were purely improvised and seemingly out of nowhere. The two would go at it while the bass would pluck along, apparently oblivious but then suddenly diving into the action with gusto. The piano would hold up and give it a break before jumping back in again. Each had a moment in the spotlight too for some solo action, a moment to show off and run up and down.

There was also some bebop and hard bop thrown into the performance, similar to the Mose Allison Trio, I felt. The tempo at these times was very fast and the three musicians exploded by showing their skill on the instruments. This was similar to the improvised moments except the whole act was like one, big improve -- yet it retained its structure and harmony and would return to the same melody over and over again, so I could tell that this was an example bebop or hard bop. There appeared to be a lot of asymmetry in the musical phrasings, too, as melodies would grow and expand from being simple to very complex. It was very jarring in a way at times but at the same time it felt controlled -- just on the verge of breaking loose and running wild but seeming to do so in a fenced-in musical yard.

Overall, the rhythm of the whole set was charged and fast, except when Spike would start an older rag and give the audience a break from the improvised sets and the bebop virtuoso performances. It was nice the way he mixed it up and provided the listeners with a variety of styles instead of one set the whole evening. Thus there was a lot tonal colors that came across. The piano would sometimes produce a timbre that was rattling and boisterous, other times calm and thoughtful with a very deep feeling. The drums were generally fast and furious but sometimes their timbre would grow subtler and be less noticeable as the tonal color of the bass would pick up for a rousing, swift melody or a steady, chilled-out, cool jazz kind of vibe (even though there was not a lot of cool jazz played, as the trio was definitely having more fun with the bebop and hard bop when not calling back to some old time rags to pass the time).