Igmar Thomas & the Art of Big-Band Beats

Thomas, whose Revive Big Band has a new album titled Like a Tree It Grows. Credit: Kasia Idzkowska.

Leader of the Revive Big Band and collaborator to rap royalty, the trumpeter and composer-arranger offers expert guidance on making hip-hop work for a large ensemble.

Back in 2010, Igmar Thomas found himself leading a jam session with many, many musicians and too little stage time. He had to face the fact that there was no way to fit everyone in. But then came the aha moment—“light bulb, big band.” Thinking back to how most students get started with jazz in school—playing together, all at once, in a large-ensemble setting—he dreamt up an idea that would become the game-changing Revive Big Band.

An innovative group built around “the experience of the Black American Music continuum,” the Revive band quickly generated buzz in New York City and beyond with its unique blend of jazz, hip-hop, R&B and other styles—a signature reflective of the bandleader’s own sense of individuality. “I have a sound without trying,” explains Thomas, who plays an Adams trumpet. “I’m different. I’m not better, I’m not worse. But I am different.” In late October, after years of inspired live shows, the ensemble released its debut album, Like a Tree It Grows.

For proof of Thomas’ originality, look no further than his wide-ranging résumé. As a trumpeter, conductor, composer, arranger and musical director, Thomas has worked with hip-hop royalty—Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Nas and Ms. Lauryn Hill, among others. That same skill set has served him well in the jazz sphere, where he’s connected with everyone from the legendary vibraphonist Lionel Hampton to trumpeter Wallace Roney and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington.

Along with the Revive band, Thomas’ work as an educator has provided a platform for his expansive thinking. Today, his roles include Professor of Music at William Paterson University and Artistic Director of Music and Education at Newark Symphony Hall.

Shortly after the Brooklyn release show for Like a Tree It Grows, Thomas spoke with Music & Arts about the ensemble’s trajectory, how band directors can infuse hip-hop into a jazz big-band setting, and what skills are necessary for aspiring musicians to find success beyond school walls.

In the Beginning

Nearly 15 years ago, after Thomas realized that the big-band format offered him a way forward, there was still the matter of material—the actual music necessary to formalize his concept. Fortunately, his two roommates in New York at the time were visionaries with their own ideas about fusing jazz and hip-hop culture: the DJ, rapper and professor Raydar Ellis, and the dearly departed Meghan Stabile, a concert producer and impresario. Like a Tree It Grows is dedicated to her memory.

Remembers Thomas: “I walked into Raydar’s room, and he had a beat that sounded familiar to me. He had sampled Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers off a VHS bootleg of mine and made a beat out of it. [That got the] wheels turning, so I pretty much took his song—his produced song, where he’s rapping and did the beat—and then I reimagined that for big band. That was the first song, and it was written [using the music-notation software] Finale. It was basically my first experience writing for a big band or large ensemble. I taught myself; I had very minimal experience on Finale software. So that was one language to learn. [I had some knowledge of] transposing instruments, but did that on the fly. I just locked myself in a room for two weeks and wrote everything on Finale—a full big-band show.”

With that experience Thomas quickly found his stride, following up with cutting-edge originals and forward-thinking arrangements of classics from Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter and other jazz giants. Like a Tree It Grows offers a window into where the band has traveled—“who we’ve been and who we are,” as Thomas puts it. In honor of Stabile, who was a driving force behind the Revive brand and the scene that surrounded it, the album features personnel and special guests who’ve been central to the Revive story (i.e., Ellis, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, rapper Talib Kweli, soul singer Bilal).

The album also serves as a textbook for arrangers and educators looking to incorporate hip-hop vibes into their own ensembles.

In the Band Room

Whether working with music by ear, expanding on a lead sheet or editing a pre-existing chart, Thomas’ example offers an invitation for educators and students to branch out.

For those looking to get off the page entirely, it’s all about direct communication and listening. “I just started teaching at William Paterson University,” Thomas shares, “and they expanded their program to encompass a hip-hop orchestra—no sheet music. We’re doing it by ear, and I’m helping them grow their ear.” This orchestra includes students with a wide range of abilities—some very technically adept players, others with minimal harmonic knowledge. So the trumpeter focuses on the common ground of groove, style and inflection. “It’s really in how it’s said. Thelonious Monk didn’t use charts to teach his music,” Thomas reminds us.

“I think the advantage hip-hop has is that it lends itself to not using charts and to interpreting the music in a more human fashion,” he adds. “Jazz does provide that—many musics provide that—but in the teaching and learning experience, hip-hop leaves a lot more room to say, ‘OK, we’ve got the sample, we’ve got the loop—so what do you do now?’ You build from it.”

In a situation where a band director is working with pre-existing written material—a lead sheet, combo piece or full big-band chart—Thomas explains that some rewriting might be necessary to properly frame different rhythmic elements within the music. “Some things that might be on the ‘two’ or the ‘four’ or the upbeat [on the jazz chart] might actually be on the strong beat in hip-hop,” he says. In the end, Thomas “wants to emphasize that there are no rules. It just depends on the song more than the style. There’s no one way to do it.”

“There are different values in [different styles of music],” Thomas adds. “And everything that’s a flex in one place [is not necessarily a flex in another]. So within the context of hip-hop, some things might flip … more like funk—like James Brown or Bootsy Collins described the importance of the ‘one.’”

Tweaking for harmonic clarity is another secret to success. “Depending on the song, this sometimes requires a lot of dilution of a lot of harmonic information,” Thomas says. “That doesn’t exclude harmonic movement or voicings or information, but it does rely on a focus on triads. That is one of the biggest things that I learned very quickly. Forget those extensions; use triads, maybe a seventh.”

Beyond those adjustments, Thomas notes the importance of the blues as a through line for everything. “Blues is the most important and continual link throughout all of this,” he says. “It preceded jazz … and it’s the basis of jazz, the first thing we learn. It’s in hip-hop and it’s in pop; it’s where we are today. So I think all of that is part of this conversation, as opposed to just jazz and hip-hop.”

In the Present

Thomas has influenced an entire generation with his work—and witnessed that influence firsthand, as young musicians who played his charts in school are now in the ranks of the Revive Big Band. As an educator, he’s very aware of his impact and how to pay things forward. He speaks to his students about the often difficult realities of making it in the music business, and teaches them to use current tools of the trade, including electronics and performance software like Ableton.

But he’s also adamant that his students understand the history that made our musical present possible: “Everything you learn, from Bach to Duke Ellington, and everything that Wynton Marsalis is telling you—x, y and z—is something you should learn. It’s all valid.”

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