SYNOPSIS:

Castillo's 90-minute documentary film, budgeted at around $400,000 for its production and editing, and slated for a late 2014 finish, will unfold the life of Thomas Chapin, a jazz master who passed away after a year-long battle with leukemia in 1998 at the age of 40. He emerged in the 1980's in New York City's wild and free downtown music scene with a highly original style. After 20 years of a soaring career and 12 CDs, most under the Knitting Factory label, Chapin's short but remarkable career ended but his music has lived on, says Castillo. Today he is in the jazz history books. Chapin was considered a virtuoso by jazz writers who followed him. He was described as having "monstrous chops" and "full of incredible energy, pushing the needle, never letting up." Critics said he was "moving the music forward." A vanguard in the world of "free" jazz, Chapin embraced all expressions of music. Most notably, he moved easily between the avant-garde and straight-ahead jazz communities; jazz festival promoter John Phillips called him an enormous bridge. Jazz writer Larry Blumenfeld noted: "Chapin is commonly pointed to as one who helped the downtown scene connect with a larger audience and is credited by some as lending a more experimental edge to jazz’s mainstream." Straight out of college, and thanks to the recommendation of his mentor and educator at Rutgers University, jazz master Paul Jeffrey, Chapin went on to tour with Lionel Hampton as his lead alto sax and musical director. This was followed by a two-year stint as saxophonist with the legendary drummer Chico Hamilton, before forming his own Thomas Chapin Trio, which had a long, eight-year stint (1989 to 1997), playing all over the world. His following in Europe grew as the Knitting Factory jazz tours and George Wein's Festival Productions put the Thomas Chapin Trio and staged concerts for thousands. "Thomas's story has never been fully told, although many have written about him and he is included in the major encyclopedias of jazz," she says. "I don't know that much about jazz or Thomas as a player, for that matter, so when I began researching him, I asked people who knew him, played with him and wrote about him, 'Should a film about Thomas Chapin be made?' They all emphatically said, 'Yes. Absolutely.' And then I said, 'Tell me why.' What they told me compelled me to want to create this film."