Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Borah Bergman & Thomas Chapin: Toronto 1997: A Suite for...

152

Borah Bergman & Thomas Chapin: Toronto 1997: A Suite for Thomas Chapin

By

View read count
Borah Bergman & Thomas Chapin: Toronto 1997: A Suite for Thomas Chapin
Death creeps upon us all. Thomas Chapin knew that rather well when in 1997 he appeared at Toronto's Du Maurier Downtown Jazz Festival with Borah Bergman. Dying on stage of leukemia, Chapin exhaled massively fractious and powerful liveliness from reeds and flute nonetheless. There are numerous struggles, limitations and even some clear misses in his performance; even so, those instances simply meld beyond recognition, as Bergman is a veritable musical pararescue trooper. He can carry both to the end of the mission, or to paraphrase the U.S. Air Force pararescuemen's motto, the pianist performed "so that Chapin may live.



Both Chapin...of some note due to his trio work...and Bergman are well known among assiduous readers of Signal To Noise magazine, or addicted viewers of the Live From the Knitting Factory televised performances on BET Jazz. Otherwise, both are likely to be unknown beyond the Factory?s range of influence...which Chapin pioneered in so many ways and some currently lament as being either outdated or usurped by other musical interests. Nevertheless, Chapin...as in the A subsection of Part 4...blows a storm in this suite.



In the aforementioned subsection, Bergman...who's the type of musician for which the human realm seems ill suited as he transcends the limits of tempo, the instrument's physics, or even linear thinking itself...runs engagingly and compellingly. Chapin's runs ascend, descend and close with low toned swinging-bop-broad-sounding riffs and mournful screeches. They become even more so in the following section, where a balladesque air is issued both subvert and overtly during the first half of the piece before Chapin's closing screams and final low toned resignation.



Like all free improvisations, jazz notwithstanding, analysis shnalysis. You have to take this performance in on its own terms and see if it works for you.



Contact: Boxholder Records/P.O. Box 779/Woodstock VT 05091 or [email protected].

Track Listing

1. Part 1 2. Part 2 3. Part 3 4. Part 4 abc 5. Part 5

Personnel

Thomas Chapin
saxophone

Borah Bergman-Piano. Thomas Chapin-Saxophones & flute.

Album information

Title: Toronto 1997: A Suite for Thomas Chapin | Year Released: 2004 | Record Label: Boxholder Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.