Jazz drummer trains musical ‘chameleons’

Jazz musician Stockton Helbing, although an artist in residence in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s school of church music, was the drummer for a February-March tour for Doc Severinsen, former band leader for Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.” And he has recorded three albums. Yet Helbing has learned that musical success comes through service. A successful jazz musician, he says, must play his own instrument with excellence but he must also have the ability to complement others to make them sound better, “which I think is clearly what we learn in our Christian lives.”