Master Saxophonist-Composer, Educator, Teacher-Mentor-Friend to Thomas Chapin
Thomas was very advanced when I met him. He could play! He always seemed to want to play new music. Tom had a very exacting teacher in high school, James Harwood. He didn’t play jazz, but he made sure young musicians got things done. When he came to Hartt, he was just looking to play. The Miami program [where he previously studied] was emphasizing studio work, and that’s not what he wanted to do.
He didn’t really like college, and felt that it was wasting his time. He wanted to go to New York, and his parents were going to buy him an apartment. I made a deal with his parents, because he only had one year left. If he would come to Rutgers, he would be close to the city. I thought it was important for him to graduate. So he did it, along with the tenor player Jerry Weldon, who came from Indiana.
The band at Rutgers was horrible. I realized at the first rehearsal that Tom and Weldon were the only ones who could play. I told him then that I wouldn’t blame them if they went back to their original schools, but they said they’d stay. A couple of years later, the band was killin’. The school used to bring in guests artists and their bands, but the Rutgers band was so good that it always closed the show. I did it by busting chops. Saxophone rehearsal ended at 6:30, then the full band would rehearse until ten or eleven at night. The custodian would just give me the keys and tell me to lock up. Terence Blanchard, Frank Lacy, David Schumacher, Andrew Beals, Harry Pickins, Rob Bargad, Ralph Peterson were all in that band. The word became that you should go to Rutgers, and people started transferring from North Texas State.
Most college bands play two concerts a year, and just sit there rehearsing the music a whole semester. We played five or six concerts a semester, and the band had to play with visiting artists like Charlie Rouse, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Nat Adderley, and Harold Vick. We also played the music that was really relevant, like “Giant Steps,” “Countdown” and “Spiral,” all of which I transcribed. No stage band arrangements!
We talked about how Thomas didn’t like to transcribe solos. I told him that was okay, because he knew the changes. I realized that Thomas could play his way, and more traditionally, so why not let him go his way? Because he was always reaching for different things, things that might not fit within the structure of the music we were playing.
I kept trying to get Thomas into Hamp’s band, but Hamp didn’t know him. When Hamp called me for one job, I said I would only take the gig if he’d also hire Thomas. The day after that gig, Hamp called and said, “That guy really can play.” Pretty soon he was Hamp’s musical director, and I got Hamp to hire the whole Rutgers sax section.
We had quite a few conversations about individuality. He always wanted to do it his way. I remember he got a job at the Blue Note, running the jam session. He had a percussionist and such. I would tell him to play more straight-ahead stuff, so he’d get known better; but he wouldn’t do it. So he lost the job, but ultimately he was right. It just took him a little longer to get known. He’d always do it his way, but always within the parameters of the music.
Once you heard Thomas, you knew he had the ability to go somewhere. When he was at Hartt, Lee Konitz came up to do a Workshop. He told me that Thomas was great. When I said I knew, Lee said, “No, he’s going to be one of the great ones.” He was always a little ahead of the other guys.
He was frustrated as the musical director of Hamp’s band, because Thomas had to kick the tunes off, and Hamp would always change things at the last second. That made Tom a nervous wreck, and that’s ultimately why he left.
He was a very nice, warm person. He’d always call me, even after I came to Duke, to tell me what he was doing. One time he was in Italy, about two years before he passed. I was in Venice, and heard him play, and he was really burning it up. A lot of Italian musicians who were more bebop-oriented complained that he wasn’t really playing, but I told them he was playing more than all of them. Some people weren’t ready for what he was doing. He’d bring the small band down to North Carolina to play clubs, and he’d be very self-critical.
He called before he went to Africa, and told me he was just going to look around and get with the culture. I asked him where he would stay, and he said he’d just find his way. I had a funny premonition when he said that. You get those feelings, I don’t know why. I didn’t try to talk him out of the trip, but I asked him many questions. When he came back and told me he was sick, I couldn’t believe it. But he fought right up to the end.
We had a memorial concert for him down at Duke. All of the guys who had been in the Rutgers band came down here and played. I proposed to the university that his archives be housed here, and they are. He kept detailed records, and a lot of that stuff is here. Andover, where he went to high school, has something for him, too.
His parents are gracious people. When I’d go up to Hartt to teach night classes, they’d often invite me to stay at their house, rather than go back to New York that late. They weren’t too hooked on him playing music, and probably would have preferred that he became an architect like his brother, but they were extremely supportive. Thomas was bright enough to do anything, but he wanted to play music. And he made the right choice.
I liken his wife Terri to Sue Mingus. Sue made sure that Mingus’ music kept going after he passed, and Terri’s doing the same for Tom. That’s important, because the world forgets very soon.