As I get older I do more writing, and a memoir about Tom is something that I am lucky to be able to do; both with respect to the writing, and the joy of recalling the memories of so special a person as he.
Paul Jeffrey, Jerry Weldon, and Dave Schumacher are all mentioned in the memoir. I showed it to them and gave them editorial and veto privledges. They all said that they were happy with the content.
It’s good to see that Tom’s material is still being released, and there is still an interest in his output.
I hadn’t seen Tom since he came back with Hamp to play at Rutgers in about 1982, and we had lost touch, but I clearly remember that February Friday the 13th in ’98 when I heard on WBGO while pulling into a gas station off route 287 in Jersey that he had died.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you,
Jonathan Womelsdorf
Douglas College - New Brunswick, NJ - December 7, 1978
Thomas Chapin-Jonathan Womelsdorf-x-x-Phil Nostrand
We Called Him Tom
When I first became a serious student of Jazz, one of the things that I enjoyed doing was reading about the lives of the musicians that created it. They gave the music the breath of life, and I found descriptions of their exploits, both on and off the bandstand, to be enjoyable, and, instructive. Bix, Prez, Bird, Trane and so many others were the people that not only created it, but also lived it, and eye/ear witness accounts about them are priceless.
I now feel a responsibility to add to this knowledge by providing some anecdotes about a remarkable musician that I had the privilege of knowing as a fellow student in the late 1970’s. Thomas Chapin was only 21 years old when I met him, but when he played that alto sax, I couldn’t help but think: he’s only 21; he has no business being that good…. but he did, and he WAS. Over 30 years later, I still remember.
It was in the fall of 1978. I was a student at Rutgers University on the Livingston Campus in Piscataway New Jersey. Paul Jeffrey was just starting his position as musical director of the Livingston Jazz Ensemble, and he had brought two students with him: Tom Chapin on alto saxophone and Jerry Weldon on tenor saxophone. These three guys were about to revolutionize the music department.
I had encountered Paul the year before when he had done some substituting for the jazz ensemble. I remembered him as a demanding guy (in a yellow leisure suit) who knew what he wanted, and wasn’t afraid to let us know what we were doing right, and wrong. I didn’t know it then, but I was very lucky to be a student of jazz at that time and place.
It was at the auditions for the jazz ensemble where I first saw our new teacher and fellow saxophone students together. Paul seemed to be in pain as he put us through our paces, finding that we were a pretty sad bunch. I don’t remember Jerry being there, but I remember Tom sitting off to the side, watching. The looks that he and Paul exchanged spoke volumes: We were terrible.
It was a day or so later when we had our first rehearsal. We were in the band room, and as the saxophone players were choosing seats, Paul made it plain to us all that Tom Chapin would be playing first alto. We all sat down and music was distributed. There was a rhythm section and I guess about five or six saxophones present at the rehearsal that night.
I looked down and read the title: Be-Bop. My first reaction was disbelief. I had recently bought the Supersax Plays Bird LP, and figured that this was probably their arrangement, but could we actually PLAY music that was this difficult? One of the things that I was to learn in the next few weeks was: YES.
Paul counted off, and we struggled through the music as best we could. I don’t trust my memory of our first run down of Be-Bop, because it was the first of many times that we played it, and my memory is tainted by my recollection of the many subsequent times that we played it well. In fact, I think that eventually our expertise with that number could have rivaled Supersax. What I DO remember about the first time we played it, is what happened when Paul indicated to Tom that he should solo. Indeed, it was burned into my memory, and took me completely by surprise.
This little guy with very curly black hair and thick wire rimmed glasses, wearing a red T-shirt, solid green fatigue pants, and leather clogs on his feet, stood up and played that alto sax like there was no tomorrow. I was amazed. I sat there looking over to my right, with my jaw probably dropped, in total awe of what he played. This was the first of many times that I would be impressed by this remarkable musician.
My recollection of his playing that night, and the many times that I heard him subsequently, is subjective and imperfect at best, and is influenced by MY musical understanding, of then, and now. My first impression was: a sound like Cannonball Adderly, a ferocity like Eric Dolphy, and a note selection style of Charlie Parker. Soon those comparisons became meaningless as I heard him play at several rehearsals and concerts. Thomas Chapin had his own voice, and everyone around him was very fortunate to hear it.
He impressed me more than anyone else at that school; and that includes students, teachers, and jazz icons who came to give master classes. I don’t make this claim lightly, and it might seem to be a presumptuous or naive thing to say, but I mean it. We were lucky to have some very heavy players visiting the school, playing with us, and giving master classes, but they didn’t impress me like Tom did. Again, this is my subjective opinion 30 years after the fact, but I think that the reason for this is that the jazz masters who came were at the top of their form at the time. They didn’t seem to be stretching. Tom was ALWAYS stretching, and one could sense this in his playing. At that point in his playing he seemed to be often on the verge of abandoning the II-V7-I tonality, but always managed to keep a foothold in it. I think that it was this ability of Tom’s to do this that impressed me the most.
In the weeks to come we were given more real jazz numbers regularly. The next Supersax arrangement we got was Cool Blues. During one rehearsal session while we were playing it, Tom started to play a flute solo, providing proof to me that you really don’t need a Bossa nova or Latin beat of any kind when featuring a flute. It was just a straight ahead swinging flute solo on the blues in the key of C, and to my ears, it sounded a lot better than many commercially recorded flute solos that I was familiar with. No names, please.
Suffice it to say, he was an excellent saxophone and flute player. He played lead alto and was probably capable of reading any music that was put in front of him, and his improvisations in any jazz setting were exquisite. I never heard him in a classical setting, but he could have probably done very well as a flute player in that idiom.
Another remarkable thing about Tom was his unassuming manner at rehearsal, or anywhere else. Anyone who has played in school bands of any kind, can usually remember a person who’s manner was annoyingly pushy, often giving unsolicited advice to others about how the music should be played, or a host of other pertinent topics. It’s almost as if when a group of student musicians is assembled, it is a natural social phenomena for this to occur, and a person invariably moves in to fill this inevitable nitch. Tom didn’t do this. It is my supposition that he was such an excellent player, that he didn’t need the cheap ego boost that behavior like that would provide.
Having stated the above, I should say that I can remember one time when Tom tried to nudge me in the right direction during a rehearsal. We were playing Thelonious Monk’s composition, I Mean You. This was my first encounter with the tune, and I was having some trouble. After a short introduction, the melody contains a very strong accentuation of the tonic on bar 2, followed four beats later by the same pick-up and tonic on bar 3, but minus the figure that had occurred in the four beats of bar 1. Syncopation at the end of bar 3 and beginning of bar 4 further complicated things for me, to the extent that, as Paul would sometimes say, ‘You don’t know where one is.’ At one point, Tom leaned over toward me and played the tonic at the beginning of bar 3, lunging toward me with his soprano waving in the air, in an effort to get me to play the figure correctly. I got the idea. I had never heard the tune before and like a lot of Monk’s tunes, what at first seems unconventional, soon takes on a beauty all it’s own.
He and Jerry Weldon were the soloists during the first year of Paul’s Directorship of the Livingston College Jazz Ensemble, and we played many concerts at the school and other places as well. We played in Manhattan at The Brass Conference, and in Philadelphia at a Music Educator’s Convention also.
One night that I’ll never forget was the night that Dave Schumacher came to sit in with the Jazz Ensemble during rehearsal. I’m not sure but I guess he was a high school student at the time and he had come from his home town of Chicago to see what Rutgers had to offer for an aspiring student of jazz. I forget the tune that they were playing, but he and Tom were both soloing on alto, eventually trading eights, then fours, and twos, and ending with a big simultaneous crescendo. This, to me, was jazz at its best; reminiscent of the cutting contests between Colman Hawkins and Lester Young that I had read about, but minus the competitive aspect. That night was proof to me that Jazz was alive and well.
I’ve read about how great jazz musicians were described by people who knew them as remarkable or outstanding individuals, and I guess those assertions are probably true, because I would certainly say that about Thomas Chapin. He didn’t say much and he wasn’t tall or classically good looking, but he had a commanding presence that transcended physical qualities. I guess this was because at any time he might pick up that saxophone and cast his spell. Anyone who heard him play knows what I mean. I was one of the lucky ones.
Jonathan Womelsdorf 2012