Returning Home After Hitting It Big in New York : Jazz: Rob Schneiderman and Brian Lynch are back in San Diego for first time since leaving a decade ago.

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” goes the classic song about New York.

By becoming fixtures on New York jazz scene, a pair of former San Diegans chased that Big Apple dream and made it come true. This Friday and Saturday at the Horton Grand Hotel downtown, pianist Rob Schneiderman and trumpeter Brian Lynch will perform together for the first time in San Diego since moving away a decade ago.

Lynch’s career took off once he hit New York. In 1982, he had joined pianist Horace Silver’s band, and eventually became an authoritative Latin jazz player through stints with Ray Barretto and others, as well as an accomplished horn section member in bands including drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Lynch was a Messenger when Blakey died in 1990, and Lynch’s “In Process” was recorded only weeks after Blakey’s death with Blakey alumni Dennis Irwin on bass, Benny Green on piano and Javon Jackson on tenor sax.

Now, along with his growing solo career, Lynch is in demand to perform with various groups internationally. Last fall, he toured extensively overseas with the Philip Morris Super Band, which also includes San Diegan James Moody, then was asked to join saxophonist Phil Woods’ Quintet, filling a prestigious trumpet slot previously occupied by Tom Harrell and Hal Crook.

“They called me around Christmas and said I was the unanimous choice,” Lynch said. “The band has an egalitarian approach, not a leader with faceless sidemen. It’s a good medium to present yourself in.”

Lynch will make his first recording with Woods when he returns home from San Diego, and it will include several of his original songs. Lynch also plays on a new release from organist Mel Rhyne, once a member of guitarist Wes Montgomery’s band.

Although Lynch only spent a year in San Diego, Schneiderman had lived here long enough--12 years--to get attached. His parents still live in Del Mar. Still, he didn’t have any trouble making the decision to go for the bright lights back East.

“It was sort of a natural evolution,” he said. “I always knew that New York was where the music I loved was centered. When the time felt right, I went. I’ve always felt pretty much at home there.

“When I first moved, Brian had an apartment and we were roommates for several months. It takes a while to start getting the better gigs, but I remember working as soon as I got to New York. My first big gig was with Eddie Harris. We had played several clubs in San Diego together, and when I moved to New York, he called me to work his gigs.”

Schneiderman plays on Harris’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” recorded live in Chicago during the late 1980s, released last year. Schneiderman also records with bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Akira Tana, a frequent associate of Moody’s.

Born in Boston, Schneiderman moved to San Diego when he was 13 and went to San Dieguito High School in Encinitas. He broke into the local jazz club scene during the late 1970s and headed for New York in 1982. Since then, he has made three recordings as a leader, including the new “Radio Waves,” and several others behind such top players as Harris and J.J. Johnson.

Lynch grew up in Milwaukee, attended the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and spent part of 1980 and 1981 in San Diego before moving to New York. “In Process,” released last year, is his fourth solo recording.

Though he only lived in San Diego a short time, it was long enough to meet Schneiderman and establish an enduring friendship. The two musicians have much in common. They are both 35 years old. They share a dedication to extending traditions of pure, hard-driving straight-ahead jazz. Both are prolific composers, and both showcase their music in tight six-piece ensembles on their latest CDs, giving collective interplay an equal billing with their own solos.

They make an interesting pair visually: the shorter, stockier Lynch, who keeps his hair short, wears glasses and likes designer suits, and the lankier Schneiderman, whose long hair, full beard and loose-fitting threads leave an earthier impression.

Schneiderman admires the music of pianists Bud Powell and Erroll Garner. He has also been inspired by horn players including Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, and he tries for a singing, horn-like lyricism in his piano playing.

Lynch sees himself coming out of a line of great jazz trumpeters that began with Louis Armstrong and continued through Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and many others.

Both remember San Diego as a hot spot for jazz during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“There was a lot happening,” said Schneiderman, who moved outside Manhattan to Yonkers, about a 30-minute drive from Times Square, when he got married a year ago. “I got to play with people who came to town, like Eddie Harris. Back then, Charles McPherson was working regularly in town.” These days, the internationally known La Jolla saxophonist performs locally only once or twice a year.

“This was before Lites Out Jazz got really big, so there was more acoustic straight-ahead jazz happening in San Diego then.”

Schneiderman became a regular on a scene that also included brothers Peter and Tripp Sprague, Joe Marillo and Butch Lacy.

By the time Lynch arrived in San Diego, he had already played with a host of big names when they came through Milwaukee, including Sonny Stitt and Clifford Jordan.

Lynch originally moved to San Diego to live with his parents while a broken foot mended, but he didn’t waste any time tapping the local jazz scene.

“I met Rob the first night I blew into town, at the old Travelodge on Shelter Island that’s called something else now,” said Lynch, who lives in a loft in Chinatown, not far from Greenwich Village. “They had a jam with Hollis Gentry and Rob and Bill Andrews and Duncan Moore, and I was impressed right away with the high quality of the musicians.

“Then I met Charles McPherson. He was one of my idols, as a keeper of the be-bop flame. So I got to play with Charles, and Rob was playing with him, too. I had the privilege of working with Charles three nights a week at a restaurant in Mission Valley, and it was great, I learned so much.

“I also used to hang out with (trumpeter) James Zollar,” he said of the former San Diego trumpeter who also has made it in New York. “Him and me and (drummer) Charles McPherson Jr., were a clique, we used to hang out, listen to records. James was the person in the area with the closest taste to mine.

“Rob had a group called Manzanita, a Latin jazz thing, and I did a lot of playing with him. I think that was a very good time for jazz in San Diego.”

After their decade in New York, Lynch and Schneiderman have adopted it as home, though they say the city has its pros and cons.

“Being out of town 30 weeks a year makes it a little bit fresher when you’re here,” Lynch said. “I think if I lived here 52 weeks a year, the walls might start to close in. The main thing about New York is the musicians are here.”

Asked whether New York lives up to its tough, gritty reputation, Schneiderman said:

“You can find evidence to back up the cliches and evidence to dispel them. You’ll find what you’re looking for. Your car window gets broken, but that could happen anywhere. Yeah, it can be dirty and violent, but a lot has to do with the density. If you took all the people in Los Angeles and compressed them into the area of New York City you’d have the same thing.”

* Lynch and Schneiderman will perform at 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, backed by drummer Sherman Ferguson and bassist Bob Magnusson. Material will include originals by Lynch and Schneiderman and a healthy sampling of standards. There’s a $7.50 cover charge.