Jim Chapin

James Forbes "Jim" Chapin (July 23, 1919 – July 4, 2009) was an American (New York born and bred) jazz drummer and the author of popular texts on jazz drumming, the first two volumes of which are Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, Vol. I, and Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, Vol. II. (A third volume is planned.) He was also the author of several albums (later converted to CDs) on jazz drumming, as well as 2 CDs entitled Jim Chapin: Songs, Solos, Stories (Vols. 1 and 2). He was posthumously inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2011.

Early life

Chapin was the son of Abigail Forbes and James Ormsbee Chapin. Chapin did not begin playing the drums until he was 18 years old, after being inspired by legendary drummer Gene Krupa. Jim left William and Mary College in early 1938 after skipping classes regularly in order to obey a massive compulsion to batter a set of drums that a classmate had left set up in the gymnasium. Chapin was a student of Ben Silver and Sanford A. Moeller, renowned rudimentalist, who popularized the Moeller method, and within two years he was playing opposite Krupa at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.