In A Mellow Tone, November 13: Live at Smalls Jazz Club

Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich Village first opened in 1994, and after a brief closure in the early 2000s, is still going strong. We will hear live recordings from 1996 to 2023

Brad Mehldau tipped his hat to Smalls in his recent autobiography, giving the current owner Spike Wilner a couple of pages to write about its formation:

When the Village Gate closed in 1994, it left a vacuum for our scene.

There was a strange transitional period with no exact hang location. Then one afternoon, while hanging with our friend Grant Stewart in his East Village apartment, there was a call for a gig at a new club that was opening: Smalls Jazz Club. ... Smalls was created by a sprightly and eccentric guy named Mitch Borden. Mitch was by no means a club owner. More of a philosopher, with a heart made of gold. Musicians trusted him and used him as well. He didn't seem to mind too much, or at least it seemed to me. ... But the Smalls culture was wild.

People that would not be welcome or able to enter anywhere else in New York City would end up at Smalls. Since Mitch never bothered to get a liquor license, he could keep the club open 24/7 and did so. Often, he simply gave away soft drinks, rice and beans and other snacks for no charge at all. How he managed to stay in business was really due to the fact that he had virtually no overhead and an incredibly small rent ($900/month). He paid everyone in cash and some cats literally lived there. It was a hang for college-aged kids ..., a refuge for old burned-out junkies from the '50s and '60s, a place for madmen, witches, homeless, poets, and hangers-on. Mitch was lucky, though: he managed to hire an entire young generation of musicians to play there, musicians who later went on to become some of the most prominent in the music. Joshua Redman, Sam Yahel, Brian Blade, Peter Bernstein, Greg Hutchinson, Omer Avital, Jason Lindner, Mark Turner, Norah Jones, Kurt Rosenwinkel all came to hang and do gigs. They were just kids and not famous yet. They just wanted to play.

Smalls went bankrupt in 2001. The club was closed for nearly two years and re-opened briefly as a Brazilian bar. Although the space was upgraded and got a liquor license, the Brazilian bar was not popular. The owner sought out Borden and asked him to re-open Smalls. Borden worked with him for two more years until the owner became fed up and sold the business. Jazz pianist Spike Wilner and poet Lee Kostrinsky partnered with Borden to buy and reconfigure the club and to give it new life.

Smalls started streaming live performances in 2007. Every week you can watch jazz performances online, at no cost. For an annual fee, you can gain access to the archives.

Here’s the Joel Frahm Trio, playing in February of this year.

You can listen live on Wednesday at 9 p.m. at 93.1 on the FM dial in Ottawa or online at CKCUFM.com. The show is also available for on demand streaming.

Note: the FM antenna at Camp Fortune is being repaired which may result in an interruption in radio transmission - online streaming will continue as normal.