He got his first pair of drumsticks at age 11 when he was in Form One at Hillview College–although Zane Rodulfo admits that, technically, his very first encounter was at age five when he received a toy drum. The little drummer boy from St Joseph learned to play piano and pan, but it was the reverberations of percussion that hooked him. Rodulfo at 26 is a dedicated drummer with a passion for Afro-Caribbean music, folk drumming and jazz.
These days you're most likely to find him making soulful music or hanging out in jazz clubs in and around New York, where he's been based for the past eight years. The T&T Guardian caught up with him on Thursday, June 2, the day after he had performed with the Rudy Smith Quartet as part of the Birdsong Scholarship Benefit Concert at Queen's Hall, St Ann's. He is now back in the US, putting final touches on his first EP recording, called Pathways, with an anticipated release date of late August.
With long dreadlocks cascading down his back, Rodulfo's youthful appearance belies a mature outlook grounded in the need for self-discipline and a practical, balanced approach to a career in music. He graduated with a degree in Jazz Performance and Ethnomusicology in 2013 from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, and recently completed a two-year Masters of Music in Jazz Studies at New York University (NYU) in May 2015.
He has ambitions to pursue a doctorate in ethnomusicology, with a strong personal research interest in Caribbean folk drumming. But all this studying does not prevent him from playing gigs in Brooklyn clubs, and soaking up the musical energies of diverse bands as he launches his own music career. He is also teaching youth in two music programmes in New York as both a source of income and as a way of actively helping communities through music education: he's involved with the Red Hook Initiative (an educational and life skills programme to empower youth to overcome systemic inequities), and from September will be teaching at the Children's Arts Guild, which offers arts programmes for boys.
What kind of music attracts Rodulfo as a performer and a listener?
"Creative and improvised music. I'm drawn mainly to the African, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American traditions. So-called jazz music." (He thinks the whole term jazz is confining: "Many musicians never understood why it was called jazz–jazz was more of a marketing tool....")
He says he is inspired by many, many musicians, and mentions just a few: "Definitely sax player and composer John Coltrane... Eric Dolphy (alto saxophonist, flautist and clarinetist), Ornette Coleman (saxophonist, violinist and trumpeter), and the Miles Davis Quintet..."
Of Caribbean musicianship, he's inspired by alto sax player and composer Miguel Zenon, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and is now based in New York. Jacques Schwarz-Bart, a sax player of Guadeloupean and French Jewish heritage, is another musician he admires. He also mentions the music of the Venezuelan pianist/composer Edward Simon.And there is a whole pantheon of Afro-Cuban musicians he listens to, too numerous to mention, as well as music from the French Caribbean.
From Hillview to the Oberlin Conservatory
Rodulfo's personal music education began at Hillview College's steelpan programme. "I was always drumming on desks... I was always into African drumming, whether from church or at Panorama or listening to rhythm sections." He first started learning drums from Aaron Maharaj, a drum teacher who also played in a rock band. He then studied drums under Sean Thomas, a T&T drummer, pan player, and jazz musician who had attended the prestigious Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz international programme.
After leaving Hillview in Form Five in 2005 at 16, Rodulfo discovered a week-long jazz workshop at William Paterson University; he applied and received a scholarship to go there in 2006. This experience was a turning point: he decided not to go back to Form Six, but instead sat his SATs and resolved to educate himself in music in the States. On returning to T&T, he briefly played with Sheldon Blackman's band–a unique family band playing "jamoo" or rapso music.
He was soon accepted for music studies at the William Paterson University in New Jersey, US, for two years (2007-9), and fondly remembers the chance to attend a four-week Litchfield Jazz Camp in Connecticut in 2008 as a resident assistant–an opportunity that came up as a result of him hanging out at jazz clubs and meeting musicians. He met Neal Smith there, who was to become a good friend and teacher. "Neal Smith, a prolific jazz drummer and educator, who has played with Isaac Hayes and Anita Baker and many other jazz luminaries, basically gave me lessons for free!" he says, in tones of awe mixed with gratitude. In 2008 he also worked on the 3Canal album Joy+Fire.
In Fall 2009, Rodulfo started at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, which he says was "the most prolific experience" in his jazz education. He especially mentions Oberlin teacher Billy Hart, whom he says was a mentor in life as well as drums. He also encountered Wendell Logan, a composer and arranger who played piano, trumpet, soprano sax and woodwinds, and who was "the most crucial part of my experience at Oberlin and as a musician/person thus far." Logan founded the jazz department at Oberlin more than two decades ago, and was a bastion of high-level classical training; he died in 2010.
After graduating from Oberlin in 2013, Rodulfo pursued his two-year Masters of Music at NYU, studying with Gil Goldstein, Dafnis Prieto and Billy Drummond.
Memories of Stevie Wonder...and Banff
One memorable performance experience, he says, was the chance to open for Stevie Wonder. "I was still in school at Oberlin, around 2011. It was the inauguration of the Kohl building for the jazz programme–which previously, for years, had been held in an old gym. I played with a full big band orchestra...and then Stevie Wonder performed with his band. It was a thrill to just be in the same room with him. He was the nicest, sweetest person."
Another significant experience was a three-week artist' residency at The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada in 2014. The Banff Centre is an arts and creativity incubator for all kinds of artists, researchers and leaders. Says Rodulfo: "It was incredible. I basically lived with a number of my favourite musicians; played with them, spoke with them, hung out... Steve Coleman, a very contemporary avant garde saxophonist and composer from Chicago, was one. Vijay Iyer, pianist, was another–he ran the programme. Ambrose Akinmusire, an amazing trumpet player, was there. Reggie Workman, who was John Coltrane's bass player for a while, was there... It was just a great learning programme."
So, is the life of a professional musician as glamorous as it sounds? Rodolfo laughs:
"Yes and no. You're your own boss. You don't necessarily have anyone telling you: 'Hey, you have to be at work for 9 am.' You have to set your own routine. You have to be really disciplined and self-motivated. You have to network. You have to be open."
The worst part of being a musician, he says, is the frustration of the current musical climate: "–the economics, or lack thereof. There is basically no record industry anymore. Everyone buys digital. CDs are basically expensive business cards. People will buy your CDs at gigs, at venues, but most people don't buy music anymore. They download it, or view it on YouTube, or have a Pandora or Spotify subscription. So a lot of professional musicians have teaching jobs. Also, jazz music isn't a popular genre. It has a following, but you have to create really smart ways to market it. You have to find the balance where the audience could relate to it, but you could also raise the bar of their understanding, challenge their musical intellect. So there's that balance of: OK, they could groove to it, enjoy it, but there is something else there to stretch their minds."
And the best part of being a musician? Rodulfo says that's simple: it's getting to do what he loves. For life.
MORE INFO: zane.rodulfo@me.com