Multitasking musician

By the end of the 1996 comic film Multiplicity, Michael Keaton's character has learned that having four clones of oneself can lead to far more complications than conveniences. Perhaps trumpet virtuoso Terell Stafford is simply too busy ever to have watched the film in its entirety, but he has taken away the opposite message.

"Four people at different spots all representing one person?" Stafford asked wistfully last week, sitting in his office at Temple University with his trumpet resting on his lap. "There's times I wish I could do that."

It's not hard to see why. In just the last couple of weeks, one clone could have driven to New York to play at the Village Vanguard while another caught the train to D.C. for the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, a third flew to Idaho for the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, and a fourth Stafford could stick close to Philly and prepare for his tribute concert to trumpet legend Lee Morgan at the Kimmel Center on Saturday.

In the longer term, Stafford clones could handle his duties as Temple's director of jazz studies and chair of instrumental studies, while others fill his spots in drummer Matt Wilson's freewheeling Arts and Crafts quartet, the more straight-ahead Clayton Brothers Band led by siblings John and Jeff Clayton, and his own duties as bandleader and composer.

"I don't sleep much," Stafford admits, shaking his head. "I'm juggling a lot, but in the long term I hope it's worth it."

Stafford's academic and artistic success certainly shows signs of paying off. This Side of Strayhorn, his 2011 CD paying tribute to composer Billy Strayhorn, has won him some of the best reviews of his career, and a sequel is in the works. Meanwhile, at Temple, he took on the instrumental studies chair two years ago, supplementing his position as director of jazz studies, which he's held since 1996. His multiple affinities are represented geographically by his home in Robbinsville, N.J. - one hour from the jazz mecca of Manhattan in one direction, one hour from the Temple campus in the other.

He encourages the same balance in his students, if singer Joanna Pascale is any indication. The Temple alum is now teaching at the school while maintaining her three-nights-a-week slot at Loews Hotel in Center City, and has been adding vocals to Stafford's Strayhorn project during the most recent engagements.