COVER STORY .

Bobby Zankel

Jazz musician / Music teacher at the State Correctional Institution at Chester


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Published: Aug 19, 2009

Neal Santos

Bobby Zankel needs to meet before he goes behind bars.

The soft-spoken alto saxophonist and leader of Bobby Zankel & the Warriors of the Wonderful Sounds is not doing hard time. He teaches music at the State Correctional Institution at Chester, which houses prisoners who are about to re-enter society as well as those who are incarcerated for life. "The guys want to go home," Zankel says.

Sitting in his West Philly house, paid for by his Pew fellowship for composition, Zankel cleans his sax before gently placing it back in its case. He'd been practicing before I showed up and after I leave, he heads out to Chester, where he works Sunday to Thursday from noon to 8 p.m. It's a schedule that allows him to practice in the mornings and play shows at night.

Zankel, now 59, never had a full-time job until he started working in the prison system 10 years ago. Sure, he had odd gigs here and there — driving a taxi, subbing in the school district, which he says can be a lot harder than teaching prisoners — but it wasn't until he was 49 that he had 40-hour-a-week employment. "I never considered how, at 45 and 50, I was going to live at 65," says Zankel. Unlike a lot of guys he plays with, who are adjuncts at universities, he's got health insurance, a pension, the whole deal. He works with a wide range of students, from the illiterate to guys who can hang with him on a professional level.

Pennsylvania has one of the highest rates of lifers without parole, and Zankel's noticed an influx of prisoners. What used to be a dayroom where guys could practice the keyboards — very few inmates are allowed instruments in their cells — or play Ping-Pong is being stacked with beds for incoming prisoners. Still, he's humbled by his students, especially the lifers who have little to focus on but getting better at their craft.

Bobby Zankel & the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound play Thu., Sept. 3, 9:30 p.m., $10, Tritone, 1508 South St., 215-545-0475, tritonebar.com.