Pianist
Spike Wilner, who is the current owner of Smalls Jazz Club in New York, is an excellent hard bop pianist with a strong musical imagination. On
3 to Go, he constantly matches wits with the great up-and-coming tenor saxophonist
Joel Frahm and trumpeter
Ryan Kisor. Check out their interplay and how they build on each other's phrases during a surprisingly uptempo version of "How Am I to Know" (which is usually a ballad). While
Frahm often takes solo honors, each of the members of the quintet makes his contributions felt, including the swinging bass-drums team of
Ugonna Okegwo and
Montez Coleman. Other than
Wilner's title cut, the set mostly features revivals of relative obscurities, some of which are given their definitive treatments as a band performance, particularly
Hampton Hawes' modal blues "Black Forest" and
Duke Ellington's "Reflections in D."
3 to Go will be enjoyed both by straight-ahead and modern jazz listeners, and overall it is a memorable effort. ~ Scott Yanow