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Spike Wilner - Piano
Ryan Kisor - Trumpet
Joel Frahm - Tenor Sax
Ugonna Okegwo - Bass
Montez Coleman - Drums
Michael “Spike” Wilner was born in New York City and started playing piano at an early age. He was inspired by a television program about the life of Scott Joplin to learn to play Ragtime Music. He perused this art form throughout high school and performed Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” at the St. Louis Ragtime Festival. Although it was an informal appearance it, nonetheless, profoundly affected him and drove him to peruse a career in music. Wilner was a house pianist at the legendary, now defunct, Village Gate as well as other long-gone clubs such as Visiones, The Angry Squire and The Village Corner. In 1995, Wilner became involved with the jazz club Smalls under the direction of owner Mitch Borden. At Smalls, Wilner has developed his music and his career. Spike is completely at home at what he’s doing and in his hands the rules of an idiom disappear, leaving an improvisational flexibility that’s available only to soloists who have really spent time learning their subject.
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