Sidney Chilton - mentor of bloke, as well as of The Box Tops
Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:32 pm
Alex Chilton (guy in the middle of this early picture of The Box Tops) had a father, Sidney Chilton, who was a fine jazz pianist...including way-back (so-called "dixieland" standards...but up into the 1960-1970's jazz standards, as well.
The Box Tops, c. 1967
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_Tops
(Some older people here (and some younger "oldies" aficionados) may (??) remember The Box Tops' hits,
The Letter, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIWY8UyW9bw
Cry Like A Baby, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY2f9tI9xzA
and
Soul Deep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpDNqTjlRes
Sidney (the father...my mentor...the pianist) moved his family to Memphis (from Jackson, Tennessee) after WWII, due to available work for him in Memphis as an industrial lighting designer.
My contact with Sidney (only a few years before his death) was when I decided that I did NOT like studio teaching (at all) and quit my tuba-teaching job at the University of Kansas (enter: Scott Watson...but that's another story). I moved back to Memphis, because I had missing out on a whole bunch of performing and recording work (Money was flowing, and I bought a house and a couple of cars, the year I left Kansas and moved back...), and some of those jobs were with Mr. Chilton.
If there is any person who is solely responsible for me STOPPING being proud of merely "knowing the changes", and PAYING ATTENTION TO bass LINES and VOICE LEADING in jazz combos (mostly...following Bach chorale compositional rules - to the extent that I had control of soprano/bass relationships), it is that man.
On various bandstands, Mr. Sidney Chilton (in his late 60's...just a bit older than I am, today) would gently scold/chide/encourage me to pay attention to what was going on (ie. DETAILS) rather than just "play whatever", and he also (without literally saying it) made me realize that all the songs that we played were COMPOSITIONS written by SOMEONE OTHER THAN MYSELF, and that it was my job to offer forth those OTHER people's compositions in reasonably faithful (albeit stylized) way.
Possibly (due to his son's connections...??) Sidney ended up entertaining some "super stars" at his home, including people like Herb Alpert (etc.)
Though an upbeat person, Sidney's personality also contained a tinge of melancholy...and I never knew (until after his death) that another son of Sidney's (at age 6) had a seizure, and drowned in the bathtub.
I've discussed Sidney Chilton before, but not on "tubaforum". I began working with him (very shortly after quitting working at KU) in the summer of 1979, and he died in 1982.
fwiw...I was playing just as much bass (as tuba) at that time in my life, and "doubled" on tuba and bass (two back-to-back gigs) five nights/week (happy hour) at a 50/50 dixieland/straight-ahead jazz gig, and (immediately after that job ended) down the street playing a 60% German music/40% standards-country-Top-40-big-band gig in a German-themed bar. I kept a Conn 36K (B-flat fiberglass) in the mechanical room at the German bar, and kept a leaky "Pioneer" (E-flat) sousaphone on the bandstand at the (happy hour gig) NOLA-themed-and-seafood restaurant/bar...which is how my proclivity towards using an E-flat instrument (when playing in jazz bands...but never really becoming a very good E-flat reader) began. Around the time that Sidney Chilton died, the Hot Cotton Jazz Band (of which I was a founding member) was formed. That (Hot Cotton) jazz band's first two LP's (digitized) can be found on youtube. Had Sidney lived, he probably would have been a member of that band, and I could have continued to learn from him...but I'm lucky to have had two or three years of gigs next to him on various bandstands.
The Box Tops, c. 1967
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_Tops
(Some older people here (and some younger "oldies" aficionados) may (??) remember The Box Tops' hits,
The Letter, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIWY8UyW9bw
Cry Like A Baby, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY2f9tI9xzA
and
Soul Deep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpDNqTjlRes
Sidney (the father...my mentor...the pianist) moved his family to Memphis (from Jackson, Tennessee) after WWII, due to available work for him in Memphis as an industrial lighting designer.
My contact with Sidney (only a few years before his death) was when I decided that I did NOT like studio teaching (at all) and quit my tuba-teaching job at the University of Kansas (enter: Scott Watson...but that's another story). I moved back to Memphis, because I had missing out on a whole bunch of performing and recording work (Money was flowing, and I bought a house and a couple of cars, the year I left Kansas and moved back...), and some of those jobs were with Mr. Chilton.
If there is any person who is solely responsible for me STOPPING being proud of merely "knowing the changes", and PAYING ATTENTION TO bass LINES and VOICE LEADING in jazz combos (mostly...following Bach chorale compositional rules - to the extent that I had control of soprano/bass relationships), it is that man.
On various bandstands, Mr. Sidney Chilton (in his late 60's...just a bit older than I am, today) would gently scold/chide/encourage me to pay attention to what was going on (ie. DETAILS) rather than just "play whatever", and he also (without literally saying it) made me realize that all the songs that we played were COMPOSITIONS written by SOMEONE OTHER THAN MYSELF, and that it was my job to offer forth those OTHER people's compositions in reasonably faithful (albeit stylized) way.
Possibly (due to his son's connections...??) Sidney ended up entertaining some "super stars" at his home, including people like Herb Alpert (etc.)
Though an upbeat person, Sidney's personality also contained a tinge of melancholy...and I never knew (until after his death) that another son of Sidney's (at age 6) had a seizure, and drowned in the bathtub.
I've discussed Sidney Chilton before, but not on "tubaforum". I began working with him (very shortly after quitting working at KU) in the summer of 1979, and he died in 1982.
fwiw...I was playing just as much bass (as tuba) at that time in my life, and "doubled" on tuba and bass (two back-to-back gigs) five nights/week (happy hour) at a 50/50 dixieland/straight-ahead jazz gig, and (immediately after that job ended) down the street playing a 60% German music/40% standards-country-Top-40-big-band gig in a German-themed bar. I kept a Conn 36K (B-flat fiberglass) in the mechanical room at the German bar, and kept a leaky "Pioneer" (E-flat) sousaphone on the bandstand at the (happy hour gig) NOLA-themed-and-seafood restaurant/bar...which is how my proclivity towards using an E-flat instrument (when playing in jazz bands...but never really becoming a very good E-flat reader) began. Around the time that Sidney Chilton died, the Hot Cotton Jazz Band (of which I was a founding member) was formed. That (Hot Cotton) jazz band's first two LP's (digitized) can be found on youtube. Had Sidney lived, he probably would have been a member of that band, and I could have continued to learn from him...but I'm lucky to have had two or three years of gigs next to him on various bandstands.
