THE OPEN MIND featuring Rodney "Godfather don" Chapman

            Rodney Chapman is a Brooklyn based Free Jazz/Avant Garde Saxophonist, multi -instrumentalist, Rapper, Hip Hop Producer, and Artist/painter, known internationally as Godfather Don...Legendary 90’s underground MC/beatmaker who has produced an performed on records featuring Chubb Rock, NAS, Fat Joe, Ultra Magnetic Mc’s, Screwball, Mobb Deep, Kool Keith, Cormega,Czarface etc. He now leads his experimental ,free jazz/avant garde improv trio THE OPEN MIND,  with Norbert Marius on bass and Alex feldman on Drums.

 In 2016 Rodney was recruited to perform as a member of Sun Ra Trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah’s Diaspora band after hearing his band THE OPEN MIND performance in a Brooklyn community center. eventually recording with Abdullah as well. That led to playing, recording or performing with legendary figures in modern jazz which included: Donald Smith, Ronnie Barrage, William Parker, Reggie Nicholson, Radu Ben Judah, Taru Alexander, Daniel Carter, Sam Newsome, D.D. Jackson, James Hurt, Francisco Mora Catlett etc. and has recorded Two jazz Albums "GNOSIS" feat. william parker,ronnie barrage and "FREE EXCHANGE a duo recording with drummer Vijay Anderson.

He formed The Open Mind, a group that would investigate the" living" musical matter, using standard jazz tunes attempting to " push" or strech them as “far out” as possible while attempting to retainin the essential elements of the “song” ...specifically: the melodic content,once in the "exploritary realm"of the undiscovered country  the process of reconstitution ends with the safe return home to the song/ melody hopefull finding something to enrich our understanding of the music and ourseleves

! With this in mind, Rodney proclaims “The live shows are always fun and exciting as well as extremely nerve racking sometimes. mainly because you really never know what’s going to happen next! ... I feel the music should be active, always expressing something new...becoming, or at least “en route” to it...then the lliving qualitiy or“muse”orf the music is present