jazztimes.com Following the stirring modal opener, Wilner’s original title track which carries a distinct McCoy Tyner influence, the pianist settles into a program of charming old-school ditties performed either solo or with accompaniment by his capably swinging rhythm tandem of bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Joey Saylor. There’s a giddy solo piano interpretation of Harold Arlen’s “I ...Read More

lucidculture.wordpress.com Who Says Club Owners Can’t Play? Most club owners who play music usually suck at it. The reason many of them open a venue is to have a place to play since nobody else will give them a gig. But once in awhile, you find a club owner who not only isn’t an atrocity exhibition, but actually has talent. Case in point: pianist Spike Wilner, impresario of Smalls, the well-l ...Read More

midwestrecord.com SPIKE WILNER/La Tendresse: First drawn to piano when bitten by the ragtime bug as a teen, piano man Wilner takes his trio on a wild ride through impressionistic to straight ahead jazz, original and cover, putting his own stamp on the whole proceeding. A known quantity to the hard core jazzbo, Wilner is extending his reach here with a feisty but friendly set that isn’t movin ...Read More

thejazzword.blogspot.com FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 201 Spike Wilner – La Tendresse 2012 Posi-Tone The opening title track of pianist Spike Wilner’s La Tendressesuggests only hints of affection before the straight-eighth pulse intensifies into a McCoy Tyner-inspired demonstration of intensity, buoyed by drummer Joey Saylor and bassist Dezron Douglas. A schooled musician, comfortable in an expan ...Read More

www.allaboutjazz.com There are few greater champions of the old and new in jazz than pianist/club owner/musical antiquarian Spike Wilner. His role in resuscitating and running one of the most important night spots for jazz in New York—Smalls Jazz Club—has made him a hero to those who frequent that bastion of musical integrity, but he’s also revered as an ivory tickling keeper-of-the-fl ...Read More

steptempest.blogspot.com As the great critic Whitney Balliett once posited, jazz is the “sound of surprise” – in the case of “La Tendresse” the new CD from pianist Spike Wilner(Posi-Tone), the sense of surprise comes from Wilner’s approach to the standards that comprise 2/3rds of the program.  Aided and abetted by Hartford native Dezron Douglas (bass) and J ...Read More

www.allaboutjazz.com Joy. But having been told that one word reviews aren’t sufficient, how about this: Pianist Spike Wilner’s disc La Tendresse is pure joy. Wilner can probably best be described as an old soul occupying a modernist corpus. His foundations in ragtime and stride piano inform the music heard here, but likeThelonious Monk, he uses the tradition as the architecture for ...Read More

http://ajazzlistenersthoughts.blogspot.com/ Spike Wilner is one busy man. Somehow, in addition running Smalls Jazz Club, developing multiple bookings covering seven nights a week, playing an early set as a soloist or a later set with one of the many fine groups that pass through the club each week, generating new ideas to bring jazz to the audience including on-line streaming from the club, mai ...Read More

www.criticaljazz.com Cover art that quickly dispels the tired myth of judging a book by it’s cover, Spike Wilner presents an incredibly intimate and somewhat emotionally charged recording that breaks down the classic piano trio in the most organic of forms. There is a special musical happy place this trio works from with one foot stuck in a more traditional past and the other foot moving for ...Read More