The Pickle Mafia: Still not legitimate

A couple of years ago, New York-based “power trio” Pickle Mafia recorded a tune called “Flying Pineapple.” About a week later, they played a gig at a sunny venue where pineapples happened to be arranged on the stage as part of the decor.

Of course, they instantly started throwing pineapples at each other.

“We threw them into the audience, and they threw them back,” pianist Charlie Lindner recalled. “There were pineapples flying everywhere.”

These guys will play (or do) anything to distract you from the fact that you’re listening to legitimate jazz. They even rebranded “Mr. P.C.,” a John Coltrane classic, as “Mr. Pickle Charlie.”

“It’s fusion jazz,” Lindner said. “It gives us the opportunity to explore. We play Ariana Grande, Nirvana, all this stuff. We play ‘Free Bird.’”

Before you scoff, take a breath, roll your eyes back around and check out the trio’s unabashedly sincere take on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s overplayed chestnut.

In the band’s early days, grinding out tours in rural venues in the Adirondacks, Lindner found that the tune had a weird way of winning people over.

“People would be singing along,” he said. “That element of the band is really cool.”

Pickle Mafia’s anything-goes spirit is fun, but it’s never snarky or ironic. “Rock Lee,” a tune inspired by the underpowered but loveable ninja from the worlds of anime and manga, is full of yearning piano passages and soaring Moog synthesizer soliloquies.

At a recent California gig, the trio was grooving away at “Yesterday Princess,” a drum-heavy track first recorded by jazz bassist Stanley Clarke, when Lindner found the perfect spot to slip in the “Willy Wonka” song “Pure Imagination.”

During an epic performance at the 2022 JazzFest Michigan, Lindner unfurled aurora-like sheets of piano arpeggios that coalesced into Hans Zimmer’s theme music for the film “Interstellar.”

It sounds like potential chaos, but somehow, the trio always brings the listener around to accept their twisted logic.

“It’s the culmination of all our influences,” Lindner said.

The cukes were already in the brine when Lindner was in high school, playing in a prog-rock-oriented band called Derelict Brew, named after a song by Beck (“Derelict”) and Miles Davis’ seminal jazz fusion album “Bitches Brew.”

In the early 2020s, Lindner juggled four keyboards and a battery of groovy gadgets as half of the Manhattan Project, an electronic dance music outfit that toured the nation and earned critical and popular acclaim.

Composing and arranging dance music taught Lindner how to build a relentless groove, an irresistible vibe and a wraparound wall of sound — a different set of skills from jazz. He welcomed the chance to mix that experience with his own virtuoso piano abilities and improvisational skills.

Bassist Ben Chilbert had a similar musical arc as a member of Haewa, a dreamy New York jam band, and a live EDM band called RootsCollider.

Mercurial, inventive and proudly Italian drummer Marco Cirigliano was an early bloomer. He went on tour at age 19 with the rapper Nelly, playing arenas up and down the West Coast and in the United Kingdom.

“He had a lot of awesome experiences in what we call ‘Olympic-style drumming’ right out of the gate,” Lindner said.

It’s getting harder for the trio to pin Cirigliano down as his star rises in the music world. This summer, he toured Europe with the phenomenal Indian bassist, vocalist and composer Mohini Dey.

“He’s putting himself on the map, and that helps Pickle Mafia, too,” Lindner said. “It’s a wonderful thing that we have all these different backgrounds, and we can come together and make it even better.”

The three came together in 2019, when Lindner was burning out from running multiple projects and wanted to concentrate on his own group, the Charlie Lindner Trio.

But rather than play second and third bananas to Lindner, Cirigliano and Chilbert persuaded him to forge a three-pronged, original sound, rolling out brand new compositions and fresh takes on jazz, R&B, pop and even classical standards.

“I told them, ‘Go do whatever the hell you want,’” Lindner said. “That was a free ticket for Marco. We’ll play the same song five different times, and the drumbeat might be completely different every time. At first, it really threw me off, but then I got used to it.”

A top-shelf videographer filmed 28 videos that showcased the trio’s musicianship, humor and obvious mutual rapport, achieving tens of thousands of views in a few short weeks.

The group’s name was inspired by Lindner’s side gig — making pickles — and Cirigliano’s Italian heritage.

During the pandemic, pickle making helped keep Lindner afloat.

“We made all these flavors — garlic dill, habanero mango,” Linder said. “We ended up selling thousands of dollars’ worth of pickles, very underground. I almost got in trouble for it.”

The trio gelled during a grueling grind of gigs in upstate New York.

“We did so many tours in the Adirondacks, we did weddings, small bars where they didn’t even appreciate what we were doing,” he said. That’s where the Ariana Grande covers, “Free Bird” sing-alongs, “Star Wars” interludes and other surprise sprinkles started to appear.

“I stopped selling us as a jazz band,” Lindner said.

One night, the trio did an entire set of electronic dance music, with vocal samples. It took Lindner right back to his Manhattan Project days.

“I thought, ‘I have a band that can literally do everything,’” he marveled.

Lindner escaped a tangle with the New York Health Department in 2022 when he reconnected with his first love and high school sweetheart, Sue George.

She persuaded him to move to California, where she lives, and seek his fortune there.

The move was felicitous for Lindner and the trio for more than one reason.

“When the Health Department called, I said, ‘No, no, I got married and moved to California. I don’t sell pickles anymore,’” Lindner said.

Meanwhile, the Pickle Mafia quickly became established in the Santa Cruz area, conquering Ventura, San Diego and Los Angeles and scoring big with a superb double-disc live album, “Live at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center.”

Lindner began to make even bolder and more unexpected musical choices, like relaxing into “Clair de Lune” in the middle of a frenetic jazz tune.

“I started playing a lot of senior living centers out here in California as kind of a therapy for me and to help people out,” he said. “I started learning a lot more material from across different genres. It’s fun for me to kind of sneak it in.”

In 2022, Pickle Mafia made a mafia-style move, muscling its way out of its New York and Pennsylvania turf by sending videos to several promising venues in the Midwest and beyond, including Lansing’s UrbanBeat.

The trio slipped neatly into the venue’s eclectic roster of regulars as if they’d been playing there for years.

“They gave us a chance on a Thursday night, and we started to grow a nice fan base in Lansing,” Lindner said.

In August 2022, the trio played JazzFest for the first time.

“It’s been awesome,” Lindner said. “We keep coming back, and the people have been wonderful and very supportive.”

Despite the trio’s obvious musical talents, some jazz venues still turn them away, perhaps fearing damage from flying pineapples, but the academic jazz world is taking notice.

“Francis Marion University in South Carolina flew us down to teach masterclasses and perform, and I thought it was really cool that they were embracing a new aspect of jazz,” Lindner said.

People still ask him about pickles, though.

“We don’t do that anymore,” he said. “Although we did bring pickles to Lansing once and passed the jar around. Maybe I’ll get the pickle business legitimized, but I’m way too busy right now.”