Smalls Jazz Club-Review by Riley

Evening. Dressed in my tie under an old zipper jacket, I ascend from the subway and down 7th Avenue. 10 o'clock and the lights and faces and voices of the West Village are alive and merry at the drunken hour on this Saturday night. As I walk tenderly through the sidewalks under construction a crowd of gentrified faces and Armani trousers and the new modern bourgeois chit-chat are stark against the shit-smelling streets and run-down buildings, run-down sleepers. Passing cozy cafes and expensive bars and the shin IFC Theatre, an old rugged street walker weaves through the bustle muttering only one word barely above his breath: "Cocaine?" 

Finally get to the jazz club, Small's right at 10:30 when the shows supposed to start. $20 cover fee not bad as far as I can tell, and cheaper than most other places in town. We walk down the steps to frothing dark basement as the doorman shuts the door and how lucky are we to be the last ones in! But look down and its bubbling with people to the brim and you can't even get to the bottom of the stairs.

Get a spot standing at the back with beer in hand waiting to hear some jazz for once, that which makes you move in unexpected ways and get crazy thoughts out in your hands and legs and dance with your girl in a dark smokey cellar until whoa there it's already 1 o'clock! The host announces the band and it's a quartet with Gary Bartz on the sax, Eric Reed behind the big grand piano, Gerald Cannon (smooth caressing the stand-up bass) & Joe Farnsworth the big fuss on drums. The One And Only big guy starts it off with a rampaging simmering drum solo that sends all the damp air rocking and tense which is the best thing jazz can do is pull you in and hang you out to dry and then finally dump a cold bucket of water on your guts and shake you loose. He raises both hands in the middle and all at once the whole band joins and they take off. And as they go, take turns soloing and improvising and making it quiet then making storms and all the while perfectly in touch with every part of each other and as the drummer moves a finger so does the pianist shift a foot to match it and they stay one and blossom out in different directions and fold back in and all over again. At the end of a few drinks and a couple hours and liters of sweat the band ends on a soft one and bow. I clap a loud smack and wander back up to the earth from the Subterranean dream and breath a cold breath. And that's jazz.

By Riley