Upcycle Piano’s Anne Trinkl with Mark Lowrey in June 2022 (Upcycle Piano Craft)
On the first Tuesday of the month, a live showcase of local jazz talent takes the stage at Upcycle Piano Craft piano store, 3945 Main St., for a happy hour concert from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Seated in front of a stunning mural of the Midland Theater, music aficionados are treated to a wide range of top-notch singers and instrumentalists.
Owner Stephen Wilson is pleased at the recognition the program, which presented its 60th show June 2, has received. “I am surprised when Upcycle Piano Craft is listed as a jazz venue and even nominated as a best Kansas City jazz club! We’re a piano shop.”
Piano icon Tim Whitmer was “the obvious choice to emcee,” said Wilson. Whitmer is entertaining and knows the community and its history. He introduces the program and artist and always starts the set with a solo number himself. He announces that the show is being recorded and will be aired on KKFI 90.1 the fourth Friday at noon. The show is donation only and patrons are treated to drinks and light snacks.
Performers have included (many for repeat performances) Charles Williams, Millie Edwards, Eboni Fondren, Gerald Straits, Bram Wijnands, Stan Kessler, Mark Lowry, Debra Brown, Matt Villinger and Joe Cartwright. There are also “cabaret” evenings with several artists trading off, and now and then former KC talents show up as visiting performers. Last December New York artists Ben Rosenblum and Laura Anglade did the show after making a special request to do so. Wilson’s dream artist is Lady Gaga, but he’s quick to acknowledge KC’s talent pool is second to none.
Wilson credits jazz guitarist Charlie Gatchet with the initial inspiration. Like many other music legends, Gatchet was visiting the shop and casually chatting about his background and influences. Wilson found himself fascinated and lamented he was the sole beneficiary. “It was happy hour time. We were having it at the piano shop.” He decided to make it a public event.
Now, and for the past five years, in a room filled with beautiful pianos of all types, people sit on benches and folding chairs and experience a real energy and an atmosphere of total appreciation and recognition. Wilson states, “There is a magic, a spirit in the room, that makes Happy Hour a thing.”
Wilson and his partner, Anne Trinkl (who first met at a jazz club), acquired the building in Westport just before COVID and spent the resulting down time transforming the space “from a dank bar to the beautiful piano gallery it is today.” Trinkl has subsequently returned to her nursing career, but Wilson is constantly at the shop. He does play the piano but is first and foremost, a “piano maker,” a technician and an engineer. Under the shop he restores old instruments, and as a former aviation mechanic and pilot, he says, “pianos, like airplanes, are complicated, vibrating, mechanical objects.” But, he says, “Pianos bring life into homes.”
Besides restoration, Upcycle buys, sells and delivers pianos and also supplies pianos to events and venues in town. The happy hour concerts, says patron Kati Allison, are a “gift to KC.”
