Thomas Chapin’s Last Performance

Electrifying Night For Thomas Chapin

Not even the word "electrifying'' has quite enough emotional voltage to describe the jolting impact of jazz musician Thomas Chapin's surprise performance Sunday night at a benefit held to defray the skyrocketing medical costs of his battle with leukemia. Halfway through the standing- room-only concert at Manchester's Cheney Hall, the buzz was that Chapin might be not be well enough to appear at the fund-raiser, which featured dozens of musicians donating their efforts.

But midway through the second half, bassist Mario Pavone, a longtime friend and collaborator, announced that Chapin was not only in the house but would perform an original piece on flute. Chapin, who was sitting in the wings with his wife, Terri, walked out on stage, looking gaunt and ill but spiritually resilient, smiling widely while enveloped in warm, loving applause. Warning that he might become overwhelmed with emotion, the 40-year-old Manchester native expressed thanks for the benefit, which turned into a giant Chapin love fest.

"I've been blessed to know so many of you. . . . So much adds to the healing,'' Chapin told the packed house of 350 friends, fans and family members.

Deeply moved, he played an emotion-drenched flute solo. For a few bright, magical moments, it seemed as though the clock had been turned back before his harrowing ordeal began with the debilitating disease and series of chemotherapy sessions, transfusions and hospitalizations. At the height of the instrumentalist/composer's growing national prominence one year ago, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a disease in which malignant cancer cells are found in the blood and bone marrow.

Chapin's impassioned, soaring solo filled the elegant, old Victorian- era theater with a powerful, real-life drama. Spellbound, the audience sat in awed silence until the final note.

Bowing to a standing ovation, Chapin walked off stage and was quickly swallowed up in darkness. Then he popped back out into the limelight, bowed again and placed his right hand over his heart.

When the final bar was sounded, Chapin's mother and father, Marjorie and Edward, stood at the apron of the stage, watching their son surrounded by well-wishers.
"His determination to live will pull him through, I hope,'' Chapin's father said.
"I was playing right along with him in my mind because, I wondered if he would have the strength to do it,'' Chapin's mother said of her son's first public performance since last summer. ``It's out of our hands. So we hope for the best.''

February 03, 1998 | By OWEN McNALLY; Courant (Connecticut) Jazz Critic

Based on the original text (in Flemish) by Jeroen Revalk (published in the paper version of Jazz'halo 1999, #4) and updated (in English) by Teresita Castillo Chapin (July/August 2016).
Translation to English: Jos Demol (with special thanks to Teresita Castillo Chapin for the corrections) (June 2016)