![]() A late show with a second band occupies the stage from midnight until closing, The main acts are now early, from about 8:30 pm to midnight toĪccommodate working people who can’t stay out so late on weeknights. What has changed are the hours of sets and some reshuffling of performers. (Wilner says they’ll be getting a new sound system to make things even better). Renovations the previous owner Jose Farias de Couto did - structural rehab to the premises, handsome bar, AC system, modern bathrooms and generallyĬleaned-up interior. What’s certain is that the new “old Smalls” benefits from expensive Chairs more comfortable than some of the thrift-shop hand-me-downs now scattered about are a goal. It’s a wood-beamed, brick-walled room softened by rugs and curtains with dim lighting accentuated by candles. You can be so close you feel like you could be in your living room - or even in the band. It’s a tight box of sound that promotes intimacy between listener and players, who, depending on where you chose to sit, can be just a couple of feet away from you, on a platform that is only slightly raised from the ground. What probably won’t change much is the cozy atmosphere within the club. The fee includes a “gambling chip” applicable toward a drink worth $10, a modest charge for a policy that allows you to stay until the club’s Materialized during the Brazilian era the last couple of years will stick. Wilner: “But we would like to pay the bills and if anyone would like to give us a donation of cash gifts or if any wealthy patrons would like to write a check.” That means the $20 admission cover that ![]() Kostrinsky, finishing his sentence: “Relax… And no pressure from waitresses.” “Listen to good music, have good drinks, meet their friends. ![]() “We want to create an environment where people can come, enjoy It’s the old spirit of that pre-Brazilian Smalls that they want to recapture. Not an era the new musician owners wish toĮmulate. A Brazilian bar owner who had snapped up Smalls’ lease and tried opening a bar on the site gave up and asked him to come back, this time as manager of a reopened Smalls, where he would run the music. When Borden closed Smalls, he reapplied his seemingly inexhaustible efforts toward a new venture bringing live jazz to the nearby pool hall Fat Cat. “Originally it was affordable and then it became impossible.” “It was really an amazing thing and it lasted a long time, but basically on the back of Mitch,” says Wilner of Borden, who ran his BYOB “virtually alone, doing everything himself.” Then he went bankrupt because of skyrocketing rent and a policy that didn’t require clients to buy anything in the club - with no bar inside there was nothing to buy. (Pianist Ehud Asherie, guitarist Joe Cohn and bassist Joel Forbes are along for the ride.) Versatile player who also performs with Kostrinsky in a rock band with New York Dolls guitarist Steve Conte. This night it’s the warm rich tenor sound of saxophonist Grant Stewart and his drummer brother Phil, a ![]() It was packed night after night because it was a cheap place to just come and hang out and musicians played all night,” explains Wilner, a New School jazz grad who made a well-regarded recording of those days called Late Night: Live at Smalls (Fresh Sound-New Talent, 2004).Įven from behind closed doors you can hear the music emanating from out front, a fitting reminder of what Smalls past and present is truly about. There was a $10 cover charge and you brought your own beer. Not easy in post-9/11 NYC.įreewheeling place, a raw space. Play-hard (in terms of fun and music), live-loose vibe of its glory days while ensuring, hopefully, its staying power into the future. He and Kostrinsky promise to bring Smalls back to the Now, ensconced in a tiny pocket of an office tucked into the back of the premises at 183 West 10th Street, he’s talking about his plans for the legendary Greenwich Village club, which he has just acquired with a partner, Lee Kostrinsky, an old friend. Spike Wilner has spent a good chunk of his life fronting the piano at Smalls, at its first incarnation as the wildly popular BYOB that Mitch Borden created in the ‘90s and during the less storied but still musically vibrant era of the last couple of years.
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