Interview: Meet Igmar Thomas, Proud Music Director of the Revive Big Band & Many Major Acts As Well

After over a decade of touring and performing, Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band has finally recorded their debut LP, ‘Like a Tree It Grows,’ with plenty of their longtime collaborators stopping by for guest spots.

‘Like a Tree It Grows’ – Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band

In this reviewer’s experience, jazzy jam sessions are typically a pretty cramped and crowded affair.

In the venues where I’ve seen them take place – including Wally’s Cafe in Boston, the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington, and even 38Riv Jazz Club in Paris – the goal has typically been to create a small and intimate setting where a handful of musicians can take turns onstage and create a disproportionately massive sonic impact on the tightly-fitted audience members packed into the limited space before them.

It seems that only a true musical visionary could attend a show in such a location and reimagine it as a massive, 35-person orchestra act. Yet such a label can worthily be bestowed on Igmar Thomas, who drew inspiration from a small jam session in Harlem in the late ’00s and ultimately emerged with the Revive Big Band – one look at their Meet the Members page, and it’s clear that they’ve lived up to the adjective in their name!

Thomas’ penchant for music began when he was growing up in San Diego and took a liking to playing the trumpet, largely through the influence of his jazz-loving father.

“Once I played the trumpet, it was kind of a natural flow for me,” he said. “I started playing when I was still in the public school system, and it just took off from there.”

Thomas later left for the East Coast and has primarily remained based there ever since. He studied jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, then ventured off to try his luck in the New York City jazz scene. He and his then-partner Meghan Stabile regularly organized jam sessions at the Creole Jazz and Supper Club in Harlem, and although that club eventually folded, Thomas resolved to carry on the spirit of Creole by forming a “big band” comprised of many of the players he had crossed paths with at the jam sessions there— most notably Nick Taylor, a Grammy Award-winning trumpeter. Before long, the “Revive Big Band” was officially a thing, with Taylor serving as the inaugural music director, although he’d eventually bestow that title to Thomas.

“Long story short: Nick kind of regressed to just being a featured guest, rather than music directing,” Thomas explains. “By default, [the role of music director] fell into my lap. So, I wrote five songs, and that was my first experience writing and having a big band.”

What a rich and prolonged experience it’s turned out to be. After making their debut at the CareFusion Jazz Festival in 2010, the group began its ongoing journey of nearly non-stop jazz performances. They’ve covered plenty of heavyweights of the genre — Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, and Thelonious Monk among them — while also inviting many of contemporary artists to perform alongside them — Bilal, Talib Kweli, Robert Glasper and many more.

After over a decade of performing these tributes and collaborations, Thomas finally decided to formally record many of his go-to compositions with the band and have them release their first proper LP, Like A Tree It Grows, on October 25th. The album is designed to be a panoramic overview of some of the band’s most cherished arrangements, from a few of their very earliest ones like “Thelonious” on through their more recent compositions. The end product is designed to tell the overarching history of the band, as well as of African-American music in general.

“Each [piece] tells a story about our journey over the years,” Thomas says. “Every song has a story and timestamps what we were doing in New York with Revive… I get kind of nostalgic.”

Those stories very much constitute a nonlinear narrative, which Thomas says is reflected in the title and cover art of the album.

“On the cover, you can see the twisting and the turning of all these different hands, and that’s just a reference to the growing and the uplifting” of the African-American musical culture that Revive Big Band has consistently honored. “You can tell that things don’t grow so symmetrically or in straight lines or perfect circles. That’s not natural in nature.”

Like A Tree It Grows by Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band — Like A Tree It Grows – Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band

Perhaps not – but it certainly makes for 75 minutes of exciting jazz music! Having just released Like A Tree It Grows, Thomas is especially motivated to continue performing far and wide with Revive (“I’m eager to go overseas and perform in any capacity in which I can bring the band,” he says) all while staying committed to his numerous other musical projects.

These include serving music director for other artists – Lauryn Hill, Nas, and Busta Rhymes among them – creating orchestral compositions of popular songs for other directors – he recently commissioned “How Much A Dollar Cost” by Kendrick Lamar for the University of Maryland, for instance – and doing what he can to promote music and the arts across his adopted home of NYC. He’s currently director of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservatory and has decent experience now at both Carnegie Hall and the New York Symphony Hall.

As Revive Big Band teams up with more and more artists, and brings their shows to more and more fans, Thomas is confident he is fulfilling his prized goal of providing everyone a safe space for performing and enjoying music together.

“I think we have more in common [than we realize] and that’s what the album, the band, and Revive as a company represent,” he says. “Musically, there are no borders and walls in terms of style. It’s not just jazz or hip-hop. There’s space for everything.”

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