The Star Talks To: Jay Schneiderman
A Life With A Fast Tempo
"You should spend a day in the life of Jay Schneiderman," the Montauk resident joked. "I switch gears so many times."
He is chairman of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, a part-time teacher at the Ross School, manager of the Beach Plum cooperative in Montauk, and helps out at the Breakers, a Montauk motel he owns with his sister and father.
He creates sculpture, works to establish a nature center at Third House in Montauk, takes flying lessons at East Hampton Town Airport, and helped to renovate the Old Montauk Highway house that he and his friendly dog, Mali, moved into several weeks ago.
His approach to a new challenge, he said, is an enthusiastic "Yeah, maybe."
Just Back From Cuba
But it is music, in particular drumming, that seems to set the rhythm of Mr. Schneiderman's dizzying though far from giddy life.
Just back from a visit to Cuba, where he went to study percussion, he left the island nation just before the Pope arrived, having tried but failed to get his two-week visa extended for another seven days.
Americans are technically embargoed from visiting Cuba - travel itself is not prohibited, but spending dollars there is illegal, Mr. Schneiderman explained - and he had to obtain permission from the Treasury Department to go there. The trip was "a mission of significant cultural, historical, [and] professional value," he convinced the Government.
Birthplace Of Rhumba
He stayed at the University of Matanzas, about two hours from Havana, to participate in a program dedicated to the study of rhumba.
Matanzas, said Mr. Schneiderman, is the acknowledged "birthplace of rhumba," a percussion-based rhythm that springs from African and Spanish-colonial roots. The music is considered quintessentially Cuban.
The blend of influences makes for "intense" drumming, Mr. Schneiderman said, illustrating on one of several drums encircling his living room. The interaction of the rhythms, he said, poses an "extremely complex" challenge for the musician.
The First American
With classes every morning and private lessons in the afternoon, plus performances with his fellow students, Mr. Schneiderman still found time to tour parts of a country not many other Americans have seen in decades. For some Matanzans, he said, "I was the first American they met."
He and other students stood out as non-Cubans, though few people guessed his nationality.
Italian? they'd ask. Spanish? German? English? Canadian?
"They're so used to Americans not being there."
Communist State
Still evident in one of the world's last Communist states, said Mr. Schneiderman, is a group consciousness, "a belief that there's such as thing as a moral incentive" to do things for everyone's good.
It is "an idealistic notion, perhaps, but a noble one," said the Montauker.
Cubans are under no illusion that everyone is equal, Mr. Schneiderman said, but believe a communist society can be more equitable than a capitalist one.
A doctor, for example, makes more than a construction worker (the average Cuban salary is $15 to $20 a month). "They realize there are natural inequities," he said, but "there's a rough balance."
Privatization
Some sectors of the economy are now being privatized, and the Cuba of tomorrow may be very different, Mr. Schneiderman said.
Seeing the country first-hand at this juncture was clearly exciting for him: "You feel like you're on the brink of change," he said.
Privatization has allowed some Cubans, including his host in Havana, an engineer by trade, to rent out a room or two or run a small restaurant in their houses.
Renting rooms brings in more money than engineering, the man confided.
End The Embargo
The biggest source of revenue in Cuba at the moment is tourism, Mr. Schneiderman noted, another result of privatization. European-backed hotels are going up along the beautiful beaches, where, he said, the weather and the people are equally warm.
His approach to a new challenge, he said, is an enthusiastic "Yeah, maybe."
"And there's no Americans," he whispered.
Mr. Schneiderman thinks the United States embargo should end. There is no question Cuba needs to be more democratic, he said - although "it seems to me they're doing the best they can for their people" - and ending the embargo would give Cubans greater access to American ideas and values.
It might be good economically for America, too, he said. Cubans "so badly want to buy our stuff, our products."
A Month In Mali
Cuba is not the first place Mr. Schneiderman has gone to study percussion. Some years ago, he recalled, when he was teaching a drum circle at the Hampton Day School, "This woman came in with this drum she got in Africa," a goblet-shaped djemb‚.
"From the moment I heard that drum, I had to go find that culture where it came from." By himself, he traveled to Mali, a French-speaking country in North Africa, to seek out the lead drummer of the African National Ballet, the contact recommended by the woman with the djemb‚..
"I basically said. 'I've traveled halfway around the world to study with you.' And he basically said, 'Sit down.' "
He took lessons, $6 a day for a month. "It had a profound impact on my drumming."
Jazzberry Ram
Mr. Schneiderman's forays into music began with piano lessons at an early age. His parents thought it important, though "practicing seemed like a chore."
By the time he was in fourth grade, the Hauppauge resident was a drummer, spending summers at music camps. At age 12, he was a member of his first rock-and-roll band, Ocean. He played with a number of bands as a high-schooler, and at Ithaca College with a group called Jazzberry Ram.
Until he was about 21, Mr. Schneiderman played the traditional drum set, but he was moving a lot and "it was too much to carry a drum set around." He was looking for something smaller, and becoming more interested in tone and rhythm.
"That really started the journey."
Europa And Waterfence
Now, Mr. Schneiderman plays with Europa, a flamenco- style band, and Waterfence, whose "New Agey" music takes influences from Cuba, Africa, the Middle East, Brazil, and Asia. He also joins a full-moon drum circle that has formed in East Hampton.
A group he started called Conundrums is no longer together because, he said, its members were heading in different directions. Conundrums was popular, and he hopes it will start up again "when the time feels right."
It brought "some of that spirit that you might encounter in Africa around the fire . . . into a club," said Mr. Schneiderman.
Meanwhile, he is writing an album of songs for a local singer and is working on producing it.
Environmentalism
Mr. Schneiderman holds a B.A. in chemistry, but he was an anti-nuclear activist in college and decided not to follow that career path. After two years' work with the New York Public Interest Research Group, circumstances brought him to the manager's job at his family's hotel.
"I knew nothing about running a hotel, but I came out here to do it," said Mr. Schneiderman, who spent his childhood summers in Montauk. In the process, he "discovered I could fix things."
When his parents sued the Sunbeach corporatino after it blocked access to the beach across from the Breakers, Mr. Schneiderman became an environmentalist. "Initiation by fire," he said.
His interest soon expanded from "my front yard, literally," to a wider stage.
Teaching Children
Mr. Schneiderman eventually went back to school winters, earning a master's in education at State University at Cortland. He was hired to teach at the Hampton Day School, and after a few years there taught at the Waterfront School in Sag Harbor in its last year.
His training is in teaching high school students, but he prefers to teach younger children. "They have a really healthy sense of wonder," he said.
With the Waterfront School closing and his sister's decision to run the Breakers, Mr. Schneiderman took up an offer to manage the Beach Plum. At the time, he remarked, he was "frustrated . . . by some of the private school politics."
The Ross School
His affiliation with the Ross School could fairly be described as accidental. Courtney Ross, the founder of the school, was giving a party and had hired Europa to entertain. She overheard a conversation he was having, Mr. Schneiderman said, and was interested in why he had stopped teaching.
Though he was "reluctant to go back into a similar setting," the Ross School seemed "intriguing," its approach to teaching "very innovative," said Mr. Schneiderman, who taught there full-time last year.
At Ross, he said, the classroom "is not just the four walls but our environment" - particularly well suited to science, which he taught in addition to math.
Drum Class
Full-time teaching was a commitment, which was fine with Mr. Schneiderman, "except I have all these other things that I'm doing."
For that reason he decided not to return this year, although when Ross asked him to teach a 10-week drum class to ninth-graders, he couldn't resist.
He is now in his second session with the students, and may return to teaching full-time soon. "I see kids as our future," said Mr. Schneiderman.
Third House Center
As president of the nonprofit Third House Nature Center, Mr. Schneiderman is doing his best to establish an environmental center at the historic site, although, he said, the idea has met with little more than "obstacles."
"It's almost crazy to not have a nature center out here, particularly in Montauk," he said. The center, tailored to school classes and other groups, would emphasize "experiential learning," he said.
But with no luck so far at Third House, the group is looking for alternatives to get the project off the ground, including the possibility of leasing a different Montauk site.
Z.B.A. Chairman
Mr. Schneiderman brings his environmental consciousness as well as his practical business experience, he said, to chairing the Zoning Board, a background that has won him bipartisan political support.
It is not always easy to balance a property owner's rights with the greater community's interests, he said, though he believes the Z.B.A. reviews each request carefully and seriously.
"I feel bad saying no. If you want to be everybody's friend, this is not your job."
Asked if the Zoning Board might be a stepping stone to political office, Mr. Schneiderman admitted it was a possibility, if he felt he had broad-based support and could accomplish something for the good of the town.