Bruce Lee Gallanter, NYC downtown music scene "unofficial" historian/archivist and owner of Downtown Music Gallery, February 2012
During my music-journalism undergraduate years at Glassboro State College, NJ, I discovered jazz in a big way, and set to studying its history, its milestone practitioners and their recordings. Upon graduation in 1976, I drastically stepped up my gig attendance at jazz clubs, loft spaces and at festivals, mostly in New York City. During my college years, many of my New Jersey friends had become musicians… jazz musicians! My passion sought any way to be a part of the various musics I enjoyed and wished to foster - not being a serious musician myself, my first step? I would organize jam sessions at my parent’s house whenever they went on vacation!
Through these initial activities, I met a tenor sax player from Hillside, NJ named Howie Brown, with whom I went to many gigs of all kinds of jazz, with each musical offering spurring an ever-enlarging appreciation. There were also free concerts at the Rutgers/Livingston Jazz School which featured Dexter Gordon or Woody Shaw, and others of equally legendary stature. Opening for each of these RLJS nights was the Rutgers Student Jazz Ensemble, which was led by Paul Jefferies. Sometimes there would be as many as fifteen young horn players on stage, each taking just one short solo. All of them were adequate, and many showed promise, but… there was this one goateed cat with a cap who absolutely soared during his brief moment and blew all the others away! Howie and I were both stunned by this guy, knowing that he was special, very special! "Omigosh! Who the hell is that guy???" Several shows later, each with amazing moments from the stylish 'Mr. Goatee', we found out who he was. His name was Thomas Chapin.
Time passed. In the early eighties I started writing for a fanzine called Jersey Beat. First I wrote short features on musicians I knew close to home, and later was asked to review albums and singles of groups from all over New Jersey. One of my first assignments was of a little-known psychedelic band from New Brunswick called the Young Turks. I subsequently saw them perform - a part of their set featured a poet named John Richey whose words and presentation were intriguing. After their set, I introduced myself and showed their leader Billy Snow, and John, my reviews of their singles. They couldn't believe my overt enthusiasm for their recordings and performance. We became fast friends and I caught them live on many occasions. I began going to poetry readings to see more of Mr. Richey, and even read my own poems on occasion.
My writings enabled me to book festivals in Rahway, close to where I was living, at a place called Modern Artist Studios. These festivals usually featured five or six bands on two weekend nights, including John Richey's new duo outfit, Lunar Bear. This fine duo evolved into a larger ensemble over time becoming the Lunar Bear Ensemble. John soon joined a new outfit called Machine Gun.
Guitarist/composer/producer Robert Musso had assembled an astonishing coterie of uniquely gifted musicians all from the Rutgers/Livingston College. John described each member of this new band, when John mentioned their astonishing horn man, I already knew there was only one person whom he could be talking about: Thomas Chapin. And it was! When I saw Machine Gun play live, I was amazed by their intensity. There were no other bands quite like them at the time. Their sets, totally focused yet completely improvised, were powerful beyond belief, even supernaturally ecstatic at times. John played samples of radio/television broadcasts and other recordings, creating Burroughs-like cut-ups of text and found sounds. Bob Musso's electric guitar and Chapin's sax would erupt together with volcanic intensity. Needless to say, I was present whenever Machine Gun played, several times with the legendary Sonny Sharrock sitting in. I went on to book gigs for them. Thomas' band nickname was 'Rage.' He was the most riveting alto saxist I had ever heard - and this I say having previously immersed myself in the recordings and performances of legendary players such as Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake... But being a phenomenal and unique player was merely part of his talent - his compositions would prove groundbreaking when he started his own groups.
Throughout the 1980’s, I had gotten involved with the N.Y. Downtown music scene, becoming friends with John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, Fred Frith, Tom Cora, Elliott Sharp, Wayne Horvitz, et al. When the Knitting Factory got started in 1986, I was there continuously. Around this time, Bob Musso was doing engineering work for Bill Laswell and started his own label called MuWorks. I did volunteer work for MuWorks, and became friends with Thomas, taking every opportunity to see him play with his newly organized trio with Mario Pavone and Steve Johns. Thomas asked me - ME! - to write the liner notes for his debut disc on MuWorks, Radius! I was honored and proud to do this.
During the same period, I had also befriended a NJ band called Regressive Aid, which later evolved into Scornflakes, an amazing quartet that combined jazz/rock/punk/prog elements in their sound. Not so different than Machine Gun in some ways. When they opened for Black Flag, one of the most popular and influential of all hardcore bands, (the relatively unknown) Scornflakes knocked the members of Black Flag out. Black Flag's guitarist Greg Ginn, borrowed the rhythm team (Andrew Weiss & Sim Cain) and they became GONE. Black Flag’s singer Henry Rollins also hired the same powerful rhythm team for his own band. Anyone checking out that lineup of the Rollins Band knew Henry had made the perfect choice.
Between practically living at the Knitting Factory and working days around the corner at Manny's 'Lunch for Your Ears' record store, I became friends with the two founders of the Knit, Michael Dorf and Bob Appel. They put me on the permanent guest list and occasionally asked me for advice on gigs - I was all too happy to oblige. The Downtown Scene was now emerging and musicians and serious listeners were coming together to hear new sounds.
Both Zorn and myself were fans of the more extreme punk/hardcore musics; Zorn incorporated that aspect into his 1988 all-star band Naked City. I mentioned to Zorn that I knew Andrew and Sim from Scornflakes and that they would love to play with him. All three thought this was a great idea so I approached Michael Dorf about the gig. Dorf gave me a date and asked what to call the band? I said Zornflakes! Unfortunately Michael didn't realize I was joking, and placed the ads with that name - the trio was NOT happy when they saw the listing in the paper!
But here's the important point – Mr. Dorf asked who I thought should open? No hesitation - the Thomas Chapin Trio, of course! He'd never heard of Chapin but, again, he trusted me. The concert, in December, 1989, was sold out, and the Thomas Chapin Trio blew away the packed audience! Zorn also became a fan of Thomas's playing and compositions and later played on one of Thomas’ CDs. After the gig, Michael and Bob came to me and said you were right, Chapin’s Trio were "AMAZING!"
A month later, Michael and Bob started the Knitting Factory Works label. Michael called to tell me about the first release - Thomas Chapin Trio! YES! Dorf asked if I wanted to be compensated for turning him onto Mr. Chapin? NOPE! Just treat Thomas with respect he deserves, I said - did I mention that Thomas was also one of the sweetest, and generous human beings I had ever met?
I am pleased to say that Mr. Dorf did indeed keep that promise. That lineup, with Pavone and Johns, and later Michael Sarin on drums, eventually released eight separate albums for KnitWorks, as well as doing a series of Knitting Factory-booked international tours, which garnered them a massive worldwide fan base.
To me, Thomas' trio was perhaps the finest jazz unit to emerge from the Downtown Scene… I caught them on dozens of occasions and was knocked out each and every time. Although a small in size, they captured the essence and magic of all that modern jazz, whether large or small ensembles, has to offer: soaring, swinging, ultra-tight, always intense and filled with fire. Thomas' music and the trio's playing embodied what was great about the history of jazz. I was elated when the trio evolved and added strings on one disc and a horn section on another. Each of the their discs on the Knit label was a gem!
Around the same time (early nineties), I got a call from the great pianist Borah Bergman who asked me to recommend a few saxophonists who could match his level of extreme intensity and creativity. I put him in contact with Louie Belogenis, Elliott Levin, and of course Thomas. Mr. Bergman ended up practicing with each of these sax players and developing a strong musical bond with each, but he recorded with just one of the three. In 1992, MuWorks recorded and released a studio effort by Thomas Chapin and Borah Bergman called "Inversions". It is one of the most powerful duo offerings I've heard – as of 2012 it is still creatively challenging listen. This duo played live on a few occasions, but were finally recorded for a second disc, this time in concert, called 'Toronto 1997', only a year before Thomas' untimely passing.
I'm proud to have watched Thomas over those two decades, gathering ever greater accolades during his short career - his recorded legacy lasted only 17 years, 1981-1997. Every performance was great, filled with his positive energy. I can still hear his sax and flute tone, passion and creativity in my memory. His infectious laughter, smile and way of moving on the stage remains with me.
After doing a series of memorial gigs for Thomas a decade after his passing, Terri Chapin gave me a large poster of his image that I display proudly at my record store. It captures his visual spirit and seems to shed some positive energy to our music shop. New, younger listeners are still discovering Thomas’ legacy - I often play his music at our shop as well and the response is unanimously ecstatic. He is still reaching out to touch us from the beyond. Recently someone asked me, after seeing the poster, if Thomas and I were brothers. I smiled and said that we were in more ways than one.
Editor's Note: In Thomas' Own Words (see Bio/In His Own Words), we add here Thomas' remembrance about the first night the Trio ever performed together at a festival curated by Gallantar at an outdoor space in the East Village's Avenue B, called The Gas Station, this was just before opening the John Zorn 1989 New Year's Eve concert at Knit Fac mentioned above:
“A friend [Bruce Gallanter of Downtown Music Gallery] asked me to put something together for a mini-festival in the summer of ’89. I had a sextet at the time, and thought a trio would be a little different. Mario and I had already played together for eight years, and Mario introduced me to Pheeroan ak Laff, our first drummer. The same friend hooked me up with the Knitting Factory, which recorded our first gig – with Steve Johns on drums – in December ’89 and put it on Volume 3 of their anthology series. They started Knitting Factory Works soon after that, when Mike Sarin joined the trio. We were the label’s first signing which gave us the forum.”