Marty Khan, producer/agent/critic advised Thomas Chapin on business matters and was also a reviewer of Chapin's music. From New York City, he lives in Tucson, AZ now.
Marty commented to me in his on-camera interview for the film about how he viewed two of Thomas's CDs -- Insomnia, which featured brass players with the Trio, and Haywire, that featured string instruments with the Trio. Golgotham is featured here from Insomia.
"Essentially what he was doing is he was expanding the framework. It was like a landscape as opposed to a portrait. It contained all these other elements. You do a landscape and essentially you may have a central element of the landscape, but you have to have a balance of the way the mountains look and the way the field of flowers look, and so forth and so on, to somehow frame that which is in the middle of the landscape.
"In Insomnia and Haywire, that is what he did. He utilized these other colors, these other flavors, these other elements to enhance the music.
"For me, again personally, I prefer that in most cases. In some cases maybe not. In a John Coltrane Quartet, which to me is the ultimate perfection of all creation, if I can be that bold. In its perfect manifestation of what the creator, actually both that creator and the player creator try to explain in the most transcendent manner, it was such a perfect element that it was what it was.
"You can add more to it, and it wouldn’t take away from it but it wouldn’t necessarily enhance it. But Coltrane wasn’t that kind of a composer. He didn’t work in that manner; in fact, even when he did a brass album, he had somebody else do the brass figures which he then worked with.
"Thomas was all contained, and I am not comparing him in any way, shape or form. I am not saying one was superior than the other in any kind of way. But it wasn’t just another element of expression. My feeling was I knew more about the man, I knew more about the message in the more expansive works using brass and strings. And so those are the ones that I keep going back to. I’ve listened to all of Thomas’ music, but I’ve listened to Insomnia maybe ten times as much as anything else and Haywire maybe five or six times as much as anything else."
Marty commented to me in his on-camera interview for the film about how he viewed two of Thomas's CDs -- Insomnia, which featured brass players with the Trio, and Haywire, that featured string instruments with the Trio. Golgotham is featured here from Insomia.
"Essentially what he was doing is he was expanding the framework. It was like a landscape as opposed to a portrait. It contained all these other elements. You do a landscape and essentially you may have a central element of the landscape, but you have to have a balance of the way the mountains look and the way the field of flowers look, and so forth and so on, to somehow frame that which is in the middle of the landscape.
"In Insomnia and Haywire, that is what he did. He utilized these other colors, these other flavors, these other elements to enhance the music.
"For me, again personally, I prefer that in most cases. In some cases maybe not. In a John Coltrane Quartet, which to me is the ultimate perfection of all creation, if I can be that bold. In its perfect manifestation of what the creator, actually both that creator and the player creator try to explain in the most transcendent manner, it was such a perfect element that it was what it was.
"You can add more to it, and it wouldn’t take away from it but it wouldn’t necessarily enhance it. But Coltrane wasn’t that kind of a composer. He didn’t work in that manner; in fact, even when he did a brass album, he had somebody else do the brass figures which he then worked with.
"Thomas was all contained, and I am not comparing him in any way, shape or form. I am not saying one was superior than the other in any kind of way. But it wasn’t just another element of expression. My feeling was I knew more about the man, I knew more about the message in the more expansive works using brass and strings. And so those are the ones that I keep going back to. I’ve listened to all of Thomas’ music, but I’ve listened to Insomnia maybe ten times as much as anything else and Haywire maybe five or six times as much as anything else."
RSS Feed