by Phil Tankel, Hartford Advocate, November 16, 1977
Perhaps you have seen Tom Chapin: slender, krinkly-hair tied in the back or loose, an orange beret atop a somewhat dreamy-eyed person. Maybe you saw him standing in front of one of the local jazz, Latin, or improvisational groups he currently plays in. Last winter in Manchester, I first heard Tom, playing alto, soloing for all he was worth. He was Coltrane, he was Parker, reaching for those impossible tones he could hear so clearly with his inner ear. Tom is developing rapidly; changes occur, he says, week to week.
Tom has been playing and writing music since he was a young child in Manchester. He began by playing the piano in imitation of an older brother, but dropped that instrument for the flute, ""probably because it was different."" While he was away at boarding school (Phillips Andover, ""the perfect place for me to do what I wanted to do""), he began to play piano again, mostly blues, and to transfer that music to the flute. Despite a considerable amount of energy devoted to playing music, taking lessons and writing, Tom describes himself at that time as being in a ""creative fog."" He was listening to rock and roll, mainly groups like King Crimson and Jethro Tull, ""because they featured woodwind instruments,"" but these did not capture his imagination like Rahsaan Roland Kirk. ""Always Kirk,"" Tom puts it, and even today, in spite of his tremendous admiration for Coltrane, Tom draws his main inspiration from the wizard of the many wind instruments. After Kirk, Tom began to explore the jazz woodwind literature; he points to Charles Lloyd, Yusef Lateef, and Gato Barbieri as major early influences. While at school Tom experimented musically, and discovered what he calls the ""essence of music"" through improvisation. He was jamming with some friends; a musical conversation arose quite spontaneously. Order developed from each musician playing simply what was inside. As Tom puts it, ""Improvisation showed me where all the written music comes from. It is all from you. It showed me essence. It is all raw, all free of any labels. It is simply you.""
Tom graduated from his New England prep school to the University of Miami, ""because I thought it would be an interesting place to be."" A semester’s worth of interest was more than enough, and he picked up his instrument cases and returned to Connecticut and the Hartt School of Music. Last year he tried to combine being a full-time student with numerous professional gigs; the experience was not as satisfying as he would have liked. Now he attends school on a part-time basis, playing in the Jazz Lab and the Big Band. ""Jazz is my discipline now as opposed to classical music. It used to be that I studied classical in order to become disciplined and used jazz to let loose. Now I use jazz for my discipline.""
At Hartt, Tom takes private lessons with James Hill and Paul Jeffrey, the Lab leader. Tom also plays lead alto in the Big Band, because ""you have to develop your skills. You learn to play with a section, to read charts and do some improvisation. I play second alto also in the Manchester Community College’s Big Band behind a tremendous musician, Sebby Giacco, and I learn so much from just listening to him. So the school bands play an important role in my musical training.""
The professional groups Tom plays with are all technically strong and quite varied in their sound. Talking Drums, led by Jose Goico, with Johnny ""Timbales"" Ventura, Tom Majesky, and Ned Alton, is a Latin percussion-based group; saxophone and guitar take most solos. ""The beauty of that group is that we do what we want to do and it is still marketable. If I wanted to make my money playing (I would play) that kind of music. I love playing it. It’s rewarding artistically, as well as every other way. It’s a whole other musical world.""
Jazz Clarion, headed by Lee Callahan, with Dave Santoro and Kit McDermott, is a traditionally-instrumented quartet playing jazz standards and original music. They have played in a few local clubs and schools, though Tom is disappointed that the group does not attract more performance opportunities.
Zasis, Rob Kaplan, Bill Sloat and Thad Wheeler, is an improvisational quartet, playing what Tom feels is truly his ""own music."" In his words: ""It is a total concept in music…I involve all of myself. I become an actor, a poet, a storyteller. Our music tells stories, paints pictures. It creates new worlds. You become a leader and a follower. It isn’t jazz, or classical, or rock or any other label. It is so difficult to describe Zasis. Everyone’s view of the group is different."" They have performed at Real Art Ways, the Hartford Art School, Foot Prints Community Arts Center, and they have a performance in the near future at Clark University. ""If anything has given me spiritual enlightenment, or direction in music or (helped) my musical awareness, Zasis has been my source.""
In Zasis, not only is improvisation utilized but also Tom brings in his personal history in the form of children’s instruments, whistles, blocks, wooden flutes, bulb horns, etc. Following his belief in total involvement he brings these sounds to bear on the ensemble’s sound. ""Suburban folk music"" he calls it, and the image is apt: a music for the upside-down, frenetic, arhythmic, atonal seventies, yet including the simple sound makers of childhood.
Reprinted with permission from the Hartford Advocate