Frank van Herk - De Volkskrant - July 14 1995
"To New York alto saxophonist and flautist Thomas Chapin, music is a serious thing. With his concerts, he wants to elevate the audience to a higher plane: ""just like in church"". But Chapin is far from preachy or sanctimonious: he is an exuberant, passionate sax player, who produces an exciting amount of energy all by himself. An encounter with a ""spiritual traveller"" who became musical director for Lionel Hampton at 23. ""The stage is one of the most real places on earth.""
Thomas Chapin has always felt the need to do something different. As a teenager he was already a bit of an outsider, albeit one who knew what he wanted. And now, at age 38, he and his alto sax, his flute and his trio are involved much more in spiritual growth than with an easily marketable career. He plays jazz that fits in everywhere and nowhere, and ""energy"" is one of the key terms in both his conversation and his playing, that matches Jackie McLean's or Roland Kirk's in its exuberance and intensity.
Chapin doesn't wear Armani suits, but looks like a jazz hippie. And true enough our talk takes place in a macrobiotic coffee shop, where he wants to take in some healthy fare before the tour, with its ever present cheese rolls, is continued. While enjoying a ""Leaning Tower"", a concoction of bread and greens consisting of countless layers and held together with many picks, he talks about showbizz, the inner altar and the necessity of devils.
His contrariness began with his total lack of interest in pop music. ""Everyone goes through an AM radio phase, and so did I, but I quickly got bored with kid music and I didn't give a damn about lyrics. The groups I thought were not too bad all had horn players. Jethro Tull, for instance. But I soon discovered that Ian Anderson's flute playing was based entirely on that of Roland Kirk, and well, once you start listening to him, you find out how it's supposed to sound. Kirk was my gateway to jazz, not just because he played sax and flute so beautifully, but also because of his strong sense of history: through him I came into contact with all sorts of older styles.""
In spite of this sense of history it remains surprising that Chapin, after studying at Rutgers University and Hart College, where Jackie McLean was his teacher, became first alto and musical director for Swing veteran Lionel Hampton, when he was 23. This was hardly the trendy thing to do in 1980. For Thomas, it was a completely natural step. ""I wanted to gain experience in a big band, as almost all jazz musicians used to do in the past. There weren't that many large orchestras left when I came up, so I considered myself lucky. I did it for five, six years, and I enjoyed it; some of the gigs were a little stuffy, but there were also nights when the young guys in the band could play whatever they wanted. Hamp was open to everything, as long as it swung.
""I learned a lot from Hampton. Later, when I led my own groups, I realized how much. Timing, for instance: not just in your playing, but also in the way you structure a concert, working towards certain effects. The showbizz aspect. A positive attitude. And that you always have to stay relaxed, even at the fastest tempos. Make sure you always know what you're playing, instead of just standing there spraying notes.""
After leaving Hampton, and after a short stint in drummer Chico Hamilton's quartet, Chapin felt he was ready to develop his own style. Thus began a period of fanatical freelancing, motivated by worry. ""I thought: will I be able to make it on my own? I took every job I could get. Chamber music, country & western with a band from Kentucky, I played flute in a flamenco ensemble, anything, as long as I could finance my own thing. My colleagues often grouse about their work. There's an old joke: 'How can you make a jazz musician complain? Give him a gig.' You should always realize how great it is that you can play what you want.""
At these freelance gigs he often ran into bass player Mario Pavone, and they decided to collaborate, with Steve Johns on drums, who was later replaced by Michael Sarin. This trio became the most important vehicle for Chapin's music, which floats between freedom and structure, sounds grand and intimate at the same time, makes you feel good but is also deeply serious.
In the Eighties the band often performed at the Knitting Factory, the center of New York's eclectic dontown scene, and also recorded for the club's label. And yet, Chapin isn't completely part of this scene either: instead of zapping impatiently he builds long solos, and he doesn't cram his records with African thumb pianos, heavy metal guitas or throat singers from Mongolia. He is definitely influenced by other cultures and eras, but he prefers to integrate them organically into his acoustic trio, which developed a highly characteristic sound as a result.
""We sometimes use African rhythmic patterns or Asian scales, but we don't shove them in people's faces. That's also because our line-up is so spare. And we sometimes play in old-fashioned big band style, in which the bass and drums function as entire sections. So that you don't sound like an orchestra and not like a trio, but like something in between. There's always something happening orchestrally: I back up a bass improvisation with percussive sax licks, the bass and sax play riffs behind a drum solo. There's a contionuous dialogue especially between me and the drums; the bass is more like a hammer.
""The energy you can generate this way is phenomenal. I think that music should elevate people's spirits to a higher plane, change the way they experience themselves and reality. They should leave the concert as different people. Just like in church. You take the listener on a spiritual journey, with you leading the way, but once you're on the road you get so much energy back from the audience that together you start the form one big generator. That's why the stage, to me, is one of the most real places on earth. People often regard a performance as something less real than reality, but in fact it's often much more real, because it reveals your true nature.
""Every musician worthy of the name knows that that is the purpose of your art. You should prepare for a concert as if for a trancendental journey, which allows you to reach something higher in yourself. Some musicians do this in all sorts of destructive ways, others meditate. I just try to be as clearheaded as possible, and cpmpletely focused on what I want to do.
""An important condition for this elevated state of awareness is that the audience should be truly present, truly listening. If they're talking, they're not open to your music. For such cases I have a couple of showbizz tricks, to get their attention: a little fanfare, or a shocking racket, immediately disavowed ironically. Jazz is the ultimate coming together of showbizz, art and spirituality. These three elements don't exclude each other.
""Another effect I like to use is making the trio sound like a ticking mechanism, that slowly gets up to speed, or winds down. This works on several levels. It's a humorous way to heighten the tension, or to release it gradually. You make the listener aware of what you're doing. And it evokes images, which people can fill in themselves. Everything is so literal nowadays. MTV forces very unambiguous dreams on you when you listen to music; it's much more fun if you allow them to come to you.""
The stage as altar, as dream factory and as showbizz set: Chapin's vision is slightly woolly and clearly earthy at the same time. He often expresses himself in symbols, but what they stand for can be easily traced in his work. This includes the devils, whom he often mentions in his liner notes. ""You need opposition, friction. Without friction there is no heat, no energy, no life. You strive towards higher things, but you also have a body that wants to swing, that has erotic desires, that has to eat. Those are the devils, good and bad, that you should remain on good terms with. Sounds that are nothing but sweet end up not being sweet at all; it's when they're bittersweet that they become beautiful.
""A very simple example of productive opposition, are the CDs I record for Arabesque: on those, I work with a pianist who outlines chord changes. These are limiting, my playing with the trio is very free. But while searching for possibilities within those restrictions, I often get ideas that would never occur to me otherwise.""
Although Chapin's free playing is always easy to follow, it has suprised some people that he willingly put on the straightjacket of Arabesque's more conventional mainstream CDs. This just amuses him, as he still enjoys startling the audience for a moment, by doing the unexpected. He also did this in other projects such as Machine Gun, a band in which the late Sonny Sharrock played guitar: pounding rhythms and raw screeching from the nethermost regions of the soul, inspired by the record of the same name by Peter Brtzmann from 1968, and his collaboration with Sharrock and Bill Laswell in Last Exit. On the other hand, his yet to be digitalized album Spirits Rebellious contains sweetly undulating Brazilian grooves and melodious, lovely flute playing. ""You can also hit people softly.""