In the Press

Vappie band set to swing Maltz, Harriet

New Orleans traditions resonate in Creole jazz artist

Music: Vappie band set to swing Maltz, Harriet

By Sharon McDaniel
Palm Beach Post Music Writer

Friday, June 23, 2006

Even-tempered, low-key, soft-spoken banjo great Don Vappie is steamed.

He's talking about his role in the PBS special, American Creole: New Orleans Reunion. Airing in September, Vappie gives a glimpse into the unique city's culture, its irreplaceable contribution to American music.

But don't get him started on the post-Hurricane Katrina debate.

"All these stupid things I've heard, like should we really rebuild New Orleans? Phht!" snorts the 50-year-old New Orleans native, his voice steely. "I mean, jeez, come on! The levees broke, you know? Fix 'em right!"

Flooding left 6 feet of water in his mother's house. A block away, three of her neighbors drowned.

Making decisions might be more critical than making repairs, suggests Vappie: "I was just in Holland; they've got an amazing system."

For his part, the Creole artist decided on action. He began rebuilding at home, playing in-town "rent parties" to raise money for musicians who lost everything. An eloquent spokesman for the banjo and the wide variety of traditional Creole music, he is now taking those distinctive sounds across America and Europe in concerts, recordings and on film.

In May 2007, he makes his debut in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall. But on Monday and Tuesday, the banjo star and his eight-piece band, the Creole Jazz Serenaders, will be in Jupiter and West Palm Beach, performing their specialty: the music that kept New Orleans hopping in the 1920s and '30s.

"It was the popular music, what everybody danced to. So it really had to swing," Vappie says. "But jazz is actually what it is."

And don't think a banjo can't swing. Take one of his newer CDs, Banjo a La Creole (2005). This is far from typical twang. Vappie is an exceptional player who wins you with his skill and an incredible variety of styles.

"My wife says I play more with a Caribbean feel than the (stereotypical) New Orleans," he adds, referring to wife, Milly, a cultural historian.

"I try to completely break down the stereotype of what people expect New Orleans music to be," admits Vappie. "Those (outstanding) 1920s bands — Astoria Eight, New Orleans Owls, McKinney's Cotton Pickers — all of these bands had a certain sound. But they didn't have that generic sound that you have today."

Another of Vappie's major roles is as composer-arranger. He began both while touring as banjo soloist in the famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Early on, word of his writing skills got around. He transcribed band music for another famous New Orleans native, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Vappie assembled the Serenaders 10 years ago as a special project for Folk Masters, the Smithsonian Institution's concert and radio series devoted to American traditional music. But after performances at Wolf Trap, one-time turned to long-term. Doors opened for Vappie when Delta Airlines featured the Serenaders on the in-flight New Orleans playlist.

Now he works on specialties, like re-creating Aladdin, Cole Porter's last musical, which was premiered in its original form early this month at the 10th Hot Springs Music Festival in Arkansas.

While Vappie tours, celebrating the glory days of early jazz, he still wrestles with today's realities, like keeping a band of top musicians together after Hurricane Katrina.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just in time to open hurricane season in Florida," he says wryly, in his usual understated tones.

The raw memory of Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, still haunts him.

"The day Katrina hit, we were playing in Bangor, Maine, in a festival," he says. "Half the band lost their homes. Sunday night, word came that New Orleans airport was indefinitely closed. So where do you go?

"One of my trumpet players still lives in Seattle," says Vappie. Then his voice brightens. "But he's coming back."

So is New Orleans; so is early Creole jazz. Vappie is adamant about both.

DON VAPPIE — And his Creole Jazz Serenaders, 8 p.m. Monday, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 E. Indiantown Road, Jupiter. Visit jupitertheatre.org/main.htm. Phone: (561) 575-2223. Also appears 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Harriet Himmel Theater, at CityPlace, 700 S. Rosemary Ave. Visit www.jamsociety.org. Phone: (866) 449-2489.

New Orleans traditions resonate in Creole jazz artist
By JAN SJOSTROM

Daily News Arts Editor

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Don Vappie breathed in music with the air of his native New Orleans.

"There's a deep understanding you don't get unless you're from New Orleans," Vappie said. "For us, music is not a thing that exists separately. It's part of my life. It's part of the way I cook. It's part of the way I talk. It's part of the way I dance. It's part of the way I communicate."

Vappie and his band, The Creole Jazz Serenaders, will bring their New Orleans sound Monday to the Maltz Jupiter Theatre in Jupiter and Tuesday to The Harriet at CityPlace in West Palm Beach. Both concerts start at 8 p.m.

A Creole of mainly French and African-American ancestry, Vappie has been called the best jazz banjo player around. He also sings and plays guitar, mandolin and bass. He's a composer and arranger who has toured and recorded with Wynton Marsalis and played on movie soundtracks, including Terence Blanchard's Eve's Bayou.

Vappie, 50, springs from a long line of New Orleans musicians. His great-uncles were among the New Orleanians who pioneered jazz in the 1920s. Second-cousin Plas Johnson's saxophone can be heard on The Pink Panther theme and many of Marvin Gaye's records. Another relative, trumpet player Renald Richard, was Ray Charles' first band leader. Richard's son, Thaddeus, played with Paul McCartney and Wings.

Director Glen Pitre is profiling the Vappie clan in American Creole: New Orleans Reunion. The documentary will air Sept. 7 on PBS stations.

Vappie's story is a way of looking at the larger issues of ethnicity in America and the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the future of New Orleans' musical community, Pitre said.

The movie, which was his wife Milly's idea, originated as a way of communicating New Orleans' multicultural music to the world, Vappie said.

Tourism has eroded traditional New Orleans jazz by skewing performances to the expectations of visitors, he said. He's spent years proving there's more to it than The Saints Go Marching In.

A more recent threat was Hurricane Katrina.

Vappie, who lives in Covington, just north of New Orleans, was performing out of town when the storm struck. His home was undamaged, but many New Orleanians who weren't so lucky are unwilling to return to the city, he said.

"A lot of people haven't done anything because we haven't had a commitment from government on any level to get the levees in shape," he said.

The Vappies have formed a nonprofit organization to create jobs and entice musicians back, but there are more jobs in New Orleans than there are musicians, he said.

The Jazz Arts Music Society, which booked Vappie's local concerts, is doing its share to provide work for New Orleanians. Vappie's band is the third New Orleans group the society has presented this season, said Susan Merritt, founder and president.

Vappie will perform with two trumpet players, two reed men, a bass player, drummer and pianist.

Their program will include classics by Jelly Roll Morton, who owes a debt to Vappie's band for its premiere of some of his rediscovered scores, and tunes from the Serenaders' disc re-creating Joe "King" Oliver's landmark recording from 1923, the year Oliver invited Louis Armstrong to come to Chicago to join his band.

Also on the bill will be hits launched by another 1920s group, the Sam Morgan Band, which Vappie calls "the first funk band." Progressing into later decades, the Serenaders will play selections popularized by Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson and other big-band luminaries, whose ensembles were strongly influenced by New Orleans-bred musicians.

But Vappie wants his concerts to be more than a history lesson.

"We play the music as ourselves and put our signature on it," he said. "By doing that we come closer to re-creating because you have to put yourself into it to touch someone."

For tickets to the concert at the Maltz, 1001 E. Indiantown Road, call 575-2223. For tickets to the performance at The Harriet, 700 S. Rosemary Ave., call (877) 877-7677.