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Hitting all the right notes
By ERIC VOORHIS
Thomas Manuel sat perched on a stool, his
silver trumpet cradled in his lap, a full smile on
his face, as Thom Avella, a Long Islander now
studying at Potsdam’s Crane School of Music,
coaxed his alto sax through the Thelonious
Monk standard “Evidence.”
It was open jam night on a recent Wednesday at
The Jazz Loft, a crowded upstairs venue housed
in a onetime tavern cum firehouse turned shuttered
museum in Stony Brook village. The jam
provides a night for area musicians and wannabes
– many of them students, many in their
teens – to hang out, catch some live acts, and get
on stage to hone their skills, according to Manuel,
who founded The Loft last spring.
“I’m humbled and proud of the jam night,”
Manuel said. “It’s such a real, genuine event and
it’s very special to me.”
Avella, the sax player, bounced on the balls of
his feet as he played to a small crowd of students,
parents, and fans, his bleach-blond pompadour
moving with the music. After each musician
took a turn – drums, standup bass, guitar, piano
and eventually, Manuel – the tune finally came
to an end. Bass player Keenan Zach, who generally
runs the jam after performing with TJL’s
house trio, grabbed hold of the microphone.
“Alright, folks,” he said. “Let’s get some new
faces up here.”
A ‘utopian jazz place’
Manuel started the night downstairs, welcoming
guests and selling tickets. There is a paid cleaning
woman, but the staff is otherwise all-volunteer.
“So you end up wearing a lot of hats,” he said.
Manuel, a 37-year-old St. James resident, runs
the pre-college music division of Stony Brook
University’s jazz program and holds positions
as a music educator at Long Island University
and Suffolk Community College. He’s also an
accumulator of jazz memorabilia, music, art and
photography, a passion that had stopped just
sort of hoarding.
Eventually, Gloria Rocchio, president of the
Ward Melville Heritage Organization, caught
wind of Manuel’s extensive collection and
reached out.
“She said they had an old museum that needed a
little work. And she asked if I might be interested
in doing something with my collection,”
Manuel explained. “That’s basically how it
started.”
Knowing they had little backing or funding,
they laid out the idea for The Jazz Loft as a
non-profit organization with a three-pronged
mission: to promote jazz education, preservation
and performance.
Rocchio’s group liked what they heard, and offered
the space on terms even Manuel & Friends
could afford: $1 a year.
With the help of sponsors, The Loft has managed
to bring in top jazz acts, put on workshops
for students, host those weekly jam sessions and
collaborate with such local organizations as the
art-focused Atelier at Flowerfield in St. James.
And then there is the collection of memorabilia
and art work on display, much of it from Manuel’s
10,000+-piece personal stash.
The display includes a collection of late 1800s
banjos and violins, an early watercolor of Dizzy
Gillespie, dozens of old brass instruments and
entire walls lined with old photographs of the
jazz world’s biggest names, including Armstrong,
Ellington and Coltrane. There are record
masters from Ella and Bing and Hoagy and the
hand-written sheet music of “It Is Written in the
Stars,” a little-known composition by “Take the
A Train” composer Bill Strayhorn that Manuel
acquired and commissioned orchestration for.
Even the three-tier bandstand has a history:
It was constructed from remnants of the
dance floor of NYC’s famed Roseland Ballroom
on 52nd Street, demolished in 2015 to
make way for a residential tower.
A changing scene
Most importantly, perhaps, the Loft is helping
keep the music alive.
And it needs the help.
“As a musician, I’ve had the privilege to travel a bit,”
Manuel said. “Jazz, which is an American-born art
form, is sadly so much more appreciated in many,
many other places than here in the U.S.”
That’s regrettably true on Long Island, where
jazz clubs in Huntington and Port Jeff have recently
gone dark. Treme in Islip is still holding
on, with performances Wednesday through
Sunday most weeks. East Patchogue’s Denton
Inn, where Lake Ronkonkoma native Manuel
cut his teeth as a performer more than 20 years,
still manages a Wednesday night jam. You can
catch it on the right nights at Grasso’s in Cold
Spring Harbor.
Manuel said he owes the success of The Jazz Loft
to its volunteers and sponsors, although that’s
clearly short-changing himself and the juggling
act he does balancing his roles as teacher, father
and husband and, now, impresario.
“It basically fits in any open minute. And it’s
tough sometimes,” Manuel acknowledged.
“But I can’t complain. I literally got to create
my dream. I mean, how many people get to
do that?”
ENTERTAINMENT
Thomas Manuel, founder of the Jazz Loft, watches as Thom Avella, a student at Potsdam’s
Crane School of Music , takes a solo on a r ecent Wednesday night. (Photo by Eric Voorhis, Long
Island Press)