Jazz academy helps North Shore swing

Richard Tedesco

On any late Sunday afternoon, the strains of a jazz combo can be heard emanating from a storefront on Jericho Turnpike in Mineola.

The source is the Long Island studio of the New York Jazz Academy at 166 Jericho Turnpike, where beginners and more advanced jazz players gather for group classes to develop or enhance their individual skills and learn to play in concert with other like-minded musicians.

Professional jazz saxophonist Javier Arau started the jazz academy in 2010, one year after starting a similar academy in 2009 on Upper West Side of Manhattan.

“It was really for the same reason I did it in the city. Even in the city, there weren’t many opportunities for jazz musicians to come together and play,” Arau said.

The Sunday sessions go for 90 minutes to two hours weekly at a cost of $32 or $40 per session. Players of all levels are admitted to the beginner class as long as they can demonstrate a basic ability to play their instruments. Private lessons are also available from Arau and other academy teachers for $45 per half hour and $80 per hour. 

Arau, 37, who earned his masters degree in music at the New England Conservatory in Boston, said he conducts “assessments” to admit players into the more advance classes. But at either level, the basic objective is the same.

“This is an opportunity to work with mentors who have an ability to help you get better,” he said. “There’s a real progression effort there to improve on one instrument.”

Arau said the school draws students from Mineola, New Hyde Park, and all over Long Island.

The approach is to work on one piece so all the seven or eight people, including grade schoolers and adults, in each ensemble can all play on it, Arau said. The players – several horn players, a guitarist, keyboard player and drummer – all have opportunities for solos as they prepare for a performance in a New York Jazz club.   

The classes are currently preparing for a performance at the Something Jazz Club on 52nd Street and 3rd Avenue later this month.

“For older people like myself, there are few places to go to learn this American music,” said Collin Nash, who works on his tenor sax licks when he’s not working as a spokesman for the Town of North Hempstead. 

Nash, who’s been attending classes for the past two years, currently plays in both the beginner and advanced Sunday sessions. His lifelong love of jazz prompted him to pick up the flute, and later the sax, when he was in his 30s. He’s been playing consistently for the past six years, and regularly performs in his church.

“I was smitten by the music,” he said.

Two of his fellow players in the beginner group currently working on “Autumn Leaves” include brothers Spenser Towse, a second grader who plays drums, and Jack Towse, a fourth grader whose played trumpet for three years, in Bayville where they both attend school. They were both influenced by their father, John, who plays guitar and sings.

“I think it’s relaxing. It’s fun. It’s nice. I like jazz,” Jack said.

Sophia Grunin, who plays sax in the jazz band in Valley Stream Memorial Junior High School, has been playing since fourth grade.

“I was looking for another place I could play music. I like jazz and I wanted to learn how to improvise,” she said.

Mark Weiner, a recently retired elementary school principal from Long Beach, had been playing sax since he was a kid and wanted to work on his chops again.

“With retirement, I wanted to get back to studying jazz and this is the place. It’s been great.”

For Morgan Krupinski, a Hicksville High School senior, who’s been playing baritone sax for eight years, New York Jazz Academy has helped him take his playing to a new level as he prepares to major in jazz performance at the City College of New York this fall.

“This is probably the greatest thing I’ve ever done,” he said of playing in the advanced group. “Playing with a rhythm section has improved my playing over the past several months.”

The advanced group was riffing on “I’ll Remember April” and “Maiden Voyage” for their upcoming performance in the city and some of the players were, as Arau put it, “really smoking.”

“There’s a real hunger for people to play this music together,” said Arau.

Arau, who was playing electric piano in the academy jazz sessions, satisfies his own urge to play in an ensemble with his own 20-piece group, the Javier Arau Jazz Orchestra.

More information about the jazz academy and it programs is available online at www.nyjazzacademy.com

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