By Arlene McKanic
Tom Zlabinger is a professional bass player, the director of the York College Big Band, the York College Blue Notes and the Summer Jazz Program, the artistic director of Jazz at the Chapel at the Illinois Jacquet Performance Space and the faculty adviser of the York College Music Club. Where does one find the time to do all this?
“I don’t have time, but I make time,” he says. “‘Cause I believe in all that I do — and I want to do what I’m doing — I’ve always loved music and I’ve tried to leave things better than I find them. I’m fortunate to have a lot of different things going on. It’s like a train on the tracks, so I really believe we need to keep things going, keep things happening, keep on keeping on.”
The big band is a product of the jazz workshop at York College and is part of the college’s jazz forum. They rehearse on Wednesdays from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Jazz at the Chapel features local jazz performers, while the York College Summer Jazz Program ‘11 will have an audition Saturday, June 4, from 9 a.m. to noon at the York College Performing Arts Center. The Summer Jazz Program ‘11 is a tuition-free, college-credit program for students from New York City public high schools. The students study jazz performance for six weeks (July 5 to Aug. 11, Mondays – Thursdays) in a big band setting with professional jazz musicians. The students have to bring their own instrument and be able to read music, though no jazz experience is necessary. The Blue Notes are alumni from summer jazz programs.
On May 12, the York College Big Band performed at the CUNY Jazz Festival at Aaron Davis Hall on the City College campus with guest saxophonist Chris Potter.
“The big band did great,” Zlabinger says. “They threw down! It’s nice because it’s a chance to get off campus. The classroom shouldn’t be an island, especially in music.”
The band is also developing a relationship with University of the Streets, an institution on 7th Street and Avenue A that advocates for known and unknown artists and has been around since the 1960s. The band performed there in March and will be returning on June 4.
Jazz at the Chapel is a series of concerts that take place in a renovated chapel near the campus, the Illinois Jacquet Performance Space, 94-15 159th St., Jamaica.
“We’ve produced concerts over there for three years,” says Zlabinger. “We have musicians from all over the world, jazz musicians from Australia and Korea.”
The space, named after jazz great Illinois Jacquet, is small and seats about 50 to 70 people. “It feels like a jazz club,” Zlabinger adds. “You walk in and the world disappears. All the walls are covered with curtains. So there’s no echo and it’s very well insulated. The only thing you might hear is the train passing by, if that.”
Other programs scheduled for this summer and into the fall are the Union Hall Block Party by the Blue Notes on June 23, a concert by the York College Summer Jazz Program at the Louis Armstrong House on Aug. 6, and their graduation concert at the college on Aug. 11.
Zlabinger, a Leo, was born in 1971.
“According to my mom, I was into music before I was born,” he says. “When she was pregnant with me she went to a concert and she could feel me kicking to the beat!” He started piano training at age 3, progressed to the trombone, then punk rock guitar, then finally found the bass. He started performing professionally and after a peripatetic life he and his wife moved to New York. He went to Queens College, got his master’s degree in jazz performance and a degree in ethnomusicology at the CUNY graduate center. He began teaching at York College in 2003.
“It was my goal to play and teach and I’m doing both,” he says. “This music has been powerful for me. I can say it saved my life and put me on the path, and focused my vision. We need jazz.”
Zlabinger takes a holistic approach to music making, and believes the ultimate experience is hearing musicians perform live.
“I think music is just as much a part of your life as anything else. If you go back to the Greeks, one of the biggest liberal arts was music. Right up there with astronomy and mathematics. Our logo is a microphone because it symbolizes the live event. Headphones are beautiful but let’s talk about live music.
“Dizzy Gillespie is my greatest example, or Cab Calloway. They put on a show. The music let’s you feel stronger, better, makes you stomp a foot or two. It needs to be hot and push you forward. The tradition of the New Orleans funeral, and the rent party, if you’ve ever been to one or the other, they got your foot stomping. I watch Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie — even Jimi Hendrix — not just jazz guys. This guy, who walks on stage, you gravitate toward him. He makes your brain go ‘What the…?!’”
Zlabinger wants to inspire such passion in his students in the Summer Jazz Program. “If you set the bar high enough the students will jump over it. It’s important to keep the bar high. I think if you expect the world from your students, your students will give you the world.”
