When a filmmaker finds a "passion" project, you come to that place where you have to be "all in". Or you should just forget about it. And sometimes "all in" literally means moving. The desire to make the film about Thomas Chapin turned into a passion around the end of December 2011.  

My sister Terri, a New Yorker and Thomas' widow and keeper of his musical legacy, visited Kaua'i and our family for Christmas, and I said to her, "I think it's time to make a film about Thomas, before he is forgotten and before all those who knew him and can speak about him forget the details and stories about his short but remarkable life."  He died on Feb. 13, 1998, and it was now nearly 15 years later.  It was time, I felt, to do the film I had imagined for many years, and I believed I was the one to do it.

It would be my 10th film, in a filmmaking career that had spanned nearly 25 years, one EMMY Award, and numerous other awards, plus several PBS broadcasts of my work.  Clearly, though, I was not looking for another film to make when I spoke those words to Terri. I was satisfied with my track record of 9 successful films, some of them made with film partners, but all of them major involvements for me. But I could be compelled to venture in again if a film idea evoked worthiness and certainty that an excellent story needed to be told.  And this I felt about the Thomas Chapin Story.  

As a long-time filmmaker, and former journalist, I know a good story when I hear one.  All of my films have been compelling documentaries (What are they? Go to www.olenamedia.com), watchable and of interest to audiences curious about something they probably knew nothing or little about.  In J-school and as a working journalist for a local newspaper, I learned how to sniff out good stories and recognize them; in filmmaking, it's the same but you have to think of millions of viewers and whether your film can appeal to that kind of reach. 

By March of this year, I felt compelled enough to build this website about the Thomas Chapin film. By May, I travelled to NYC to begin my research and to interview the primary storytellers, witnesses to Thomas' life and career.  By June, the flood of doubts came; you really have to be sure you want to climb this mountain!!  Three to four years of committed attention; the slippery money slope to find the funding to make the film; and the confidence to surmount every obstacle and barrier (mental, emotional and physical) that would come against you finishing your film. By July, I had found my way back to courage and commitment, and began making plans to forge ahead.  

In August-September, I finished up my paying gig and proudly premiered Grace and Beauty, a documentary made for the celebration of 150 years of the Episcopal Church in Hawaii.  And deposited my final paycheck from the project.

In September, I found an editor in New York City who was willing to defer payment to cut the needed fundraising trailer, my next necessary step in launching the film project. I bought my plane ticket with plans to land in NYC on Oct. 20 to start work with editor Laura Corwin, a professional and seasoned filmmaker herself who could see the worthiness and excellence in telling the Thomas Chapin story.  

Oh. And I decided ten days before leaving for NYC to give up my beautiful cottage on Kaua'i, to put all stuff in storage, and to let go and Let God, as is the vernacular in the journey of Faith. 

I am now settled in with my sister Terri in Jackson Hts., Queens, not too far from Manhattan where the Thomas Chapin story played out. Terri and I decided to take a "chill" day the day after I arrived and headed for Woodstock to see the brilliance of the leaves and to spend some sisterly time together. On our way back to NYC, we listened to a preview copy of Thomas' new 3-CD release, NEVER LET ME GO. It is as BRILLIANT as the leaves of God we encountered that day. I can't wait to share it with you!

More settling in at Terri's. I have bought a work table and a computer chair, and my Metro pass.  Laura, the editor, is just two Metro stops away from me, and we had our first person-to-person meeting yesterday. Unfortunately, or fortunately if we want to stay confident and in Faith, already she has been called away from me to a paying gig that got pushed up. With the excellent work she has already done to begin the trailer and organizing the workflow of its editing, the hand off to me was smooth. I will finish the editing myself, with her looking over my shoulder from afar. She plans to stay involve with the project, and will resume her involvement next year sometime when her paying gig is up. By then, I hope to see the money mounting up for us to speed ahead into the actual making of the film.  

The path before me is clear. Finish the trailer, launch the fundraising. It's the day to day work that keeps me stepping forward into the life of making a film. And it's being made in Thomas' city, the Big Apple, where he took a huge bite for his short-lived life. 

I attended a film fundraising workshop the other night at the offices of Women Make Movies in Soho. I brought my grant writer Marti Fischer with me to give her an orientation about raising money for films.  It's something I've been doing for years, and have raised almost $2 million over the course of my nine films.  For Marti, it's all new, but she is a fast learner and has already identified possible funding sources and partners.

Two questions were asked at the workshop:  Why is the film you want to make important? Why is it URGENT to make this film now (an element the presenter felt must be considered).  Part 2 of this blog is coming, and I shall articulate the answers. 

 Thanks for staying with me.  It's going to get exciting!!

 

Thomas Chapin died on February 13, 1998. It's now 2012, that makes it almost 15 years since his sad passing. 

That we are celebrating a new release of his music due out on Dec. 11. That a 7-minute trailer for my documentary film about him will be ready also on that date. These are powerful coincidences that will meaningfully converge. And this synergy will resurrect Thomas with synchronicity.

Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychologist who in the 1920's studied and reflected on synchronicity, was the first to use this term. He defined it in his writings (paraphrasing here) as the experience of two or more events that are apparently unrelated in their cause or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. 

I think I would add that it is "we" who create that meaning.  As I am expressing it now.  

It's meaningful to me because the CD release draws attention to the fact that Thomas' music continues, and that my making a documentary film about him is relevant to an important jazz legacy -- important and worthy. The man is still creating! Even in this resurrection of music never heard from 1995, 1996.  And even as my film will unfold through his music and words the remarkable story that surrounds him.

Like all important convergences, it's worthy to take note. The CD and the film are going to launch Thomas Chapin into "beyond the jazz history books" and take his fame far beyond what he never fully achieved because of his very early passing. (He died from leukemia just as his career was shifting into high gear.)

The CD and the film trailer will be a simultaneous "released" on Dec. 9 in Manhattan at a celebration party. Wish you all could be there!!!

Read for yourself the press release about the 3-CD recordings: 

On December 11th, Playscape Recordings will release Never Let Me Go: Quartets ’95 & ’96 (PSR#111095), a new three-disc set featuring two late-career performances by saxophonist/composer Thomas Chapin, including his final New York concert before succumbing to leukemia in 1998 at age 40.

Mixed and mastered from original tapes discovered in the private family collection, this special historical release was produced in partnership with Akasha, Inc., the non-profit organization founded in 1999 by Chapin’s widow, Terri Castillo-Chapin, to preserve and advance his musical legacy. In addition to the music, the set features liner notes from veteran jazz journalist and broadcaster Brian Morton, exclusive archival photos and remembrances from the musicians who joined him for these shows.

Discs one and two capture Chapin’s working quartet of the time, featuring pianist Peter Madsen, bassist Kiyoto Fujiwara and drummer Reggie Nicholson, performing at Flushing Town Hall in Queens on November 10th, 1995. The group played two selections fromYou Don’t Know Me (Arabesque Records), as well as a wide variety of other material, including Artie Shaw’s “Moonray”, Thelonious Monk’s “Ugly Beauty” and “Red Cross” and Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman”.

Chapin founded this ensemble in the early 90′s to explore new harmonic possibilities in his music after years of performing and recording with his highly regarded trio. Prior to this date, they performed regularly around New York, including week-long engagements at Iridium Jazz Club and The Village Gate.

In contrast, the third disc captures the first and only concert ever played by a later quartet featuring Madsen, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Matt Wilson at The Knitting Factory on December 19th, 1996. For what turned out to be his final performance in New York, this ensemble presented extended readings of three new pieces written specifically for its all-star lineup, a version of his well-known composition “Sky Piece” and an arrangement of Roland Kirk’s “Lovellevellilloqui”.

“They can do just about anything,” wrote Peter Watrous in his review of this show for theNew York Times, “and Mr. Chapin had the group move from freetime sections to swinging parts that moved with complex harmonies. Mr. Wilson doubled and halved the tempos; the music sounded wonderfully unstable. One piece, a ballad, invoked the Blue Note Label in 1964; Mr. Chapin tore through a composition by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, using a hard, rough tone. He likes heat and velocity, and the music flew by, jammed with notes.”

In summing up Chapin’s place in jazz history for the eight-disc retrospective Alive (Knitting Factory Works) in 1999, GRAMMY® winning jazz critic and author Bob Blumenthal wrote, “An honest appraisal of the universe of improvised music created in the decade of his activity as a bandleader should persuade all but the most doctrinaire that Thomas Chapin was one of the definitive artists of the 1990s. Not the most heavily exposed or fashionable, perhaps; but a musician who got at the emotional and spiritual nub of what jazz is supposed to be about as successfully and consistently as anyone working during the period.”