Thomas the "Straw Boss"Steve Swell, trombonist-composer-band leader

I had heard the name Tom Chapin around NYC as being an exciting musician long before I came to play with and know him. When I joined Lionel Hampton’s band in January of 1983, Tom had already been on the band a couple of years. This was a great band. It had Frankie Dunlop on drums, Monk’s drummer, Rickey Ford, Charles Stephens, Paul Jeffrey and many more terrific musicians.

The night I joined, Tom had just been promoted to the position of “straw boss.” That is a term you don’t hear much of anymore but it meant you had proven yourself to be a leader in the band and it meant certain responsibiities. For Tom, it meant he had to count off each tune of the set after the previous one was finished.

I will never forget the first night I was on the band and Tom’s first night with his new duties. The band ended the first tune of the set. Tom got up from his chair in the sax section and thoughtfully started to figure out the right tempo for the next tune. I couldn’t tell you what tune it was if my life depended on it because as anyone who ever saw that band knew it was notorious for 2 to 2 1/2 hour sets with a lot of music packed into it.

Anyway, Tom figures out what the right tempo should be and starts to count it off but Hamp starts playing another tune before Tom finishes counting, by himself. We all scrambled to see if we could find the tune and realized it wasn’t in the set. Well, Tom was a bit startled, as we all were, and he slowly sat down. We had to wait for Hamp to finish, which we didn’t know where that might be or what he might do next.

Anyway, Hamp finishes and Tom gets up and again, looks at the second tune we were supposed to play, thinks about it and starts to count it off. I guess it was too much time again between tunes and Hamp was off, a second time, playing something not on the list. Again, Tom was startled but this time he looked around at the rest of the band with this huge smile as he slowly sat down and we all waited for Hamp to finish this new round.

When he was done, Tom jumped up and started counting the second tune off right away, now the fourth one actually, and this time the band started playing before Hamp had a chance to change the program again.

The rest of that first night went great but there would still be times during my year with the band when Hamp would beat Tom to the punch and start something by himself. Whenever that happend, Tom would just look around, smile that smile and slowly sit down.