The official Jim Chapin website
James Forbes "Jim" Chapin (July 23, 1919 - July 4, 2009) was a well-regarded American jazz drummer and the author of a popular text 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).
Jim Chapin was a student of Sanford A. Moeller, who invented and popularized the Moeller method. Jim taught this method of drumming to drumming greats such as Dom Famularo, Cesar Zuiderwijk and Thomas Lang, and to many other drummers over his 60-year career. Chapin was friends with legendary drummer and fellow Moeller method user Gene Krupa, and though not as widely-known as Krupa, Buddy Rich, or other era greats, he was well-known among jazz drummers, particularly for Advanced Techniques, which has been called "the definitive study on coordinated independence" for jazz drummers (coordinated independence being the practice of playing in separate times simultaneously).
Chapin was the son of Abigail Forbes and James Ormsbee Chapin. He was the father of ten children, including musicians Harry, Tom, and Steve Chapin, who are also the children of Elspeth Hart, the daughter of Kenneth Burke. He is the grandfather of Jen Chapin and two of the three members of the Chapin Sisters group. He was the direct descendant of Deacon Samuel Chapin.
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