‘Sopranos’ actor Imperioli helps NYC school teach kids jazz _ with musical greats tutoring

‘Sopranos’ actor supports NY school’s jazz program

NEW YORK — Actor Michael Imperioli is in tune with the times — starring in a new thriller set in a foreclosed house and off-screen supporting a school jazz program led by recession-squeezed musical greats.

“To be inspired by the energy and mystique surrounding these older artists fills gaps in young people’s relationship to the world,” says Imperioli, who gained fame in the HBO mob series “The Sopranos” and now is shooting the Richard Ledes-directed film “Foreclosure” in Queens.

The 44-year-old actor was at Manhattan’s Claremont Preparatory School recently for a concert featuring the veteran musicians with the students, including his 11-year-old son, Vadim, on trumpet.

Each week since January, the jazz artists have been showing the kids a thing or two — about music and life.

Henry Butler, decked out in purple at the piano, is a blind musician from New Orleans who survived Hurricane Katrina.

The private school’s headmaster, Irwin Shlachter, said the children had a lot to learn from Butler.

“What they learn is, here’s a guy who could feel sorry for himself, but, instead, he brings out the magic of the piano and the voice,” Shlachter said.

Claremont sits opposite the New York Stock Exchange in a 1929 bank building just feet from Wall Street, with the lunchroom in the former vault.

For its new jazz residency program, the Financial District school is partnering with the Jazz Foundation of America, where Imperioli is an advisory board member. The New York-based nonprofit helps musicians in need with everything from performance opportunities and emergency living expenses to medical care and housing.

The foundation brought in Claremont’s jazz tutors — besides Butler, guitarist Melvin Sparks, drummer Napoleon Revels-Bey, trumpeter Joey Morant, vocalist Fay Victor, saxophonist Patience Higgins and bass player Alex Layne.

Morant, a disciple of Louis Armstrong, has been coaching Vadim, who “came home very excited,” his dad says.

“He’s improvising a lot more,” Imperioli says, “and this has inspired him to practice more.”

The musicians plan to return to Claremont when school starts in the fall.