Mark
Rapp Returns Home and Finds His Groove
Mark
Rapp Returns Home and Finds His Groove
About
an hour before the Psycho Jazz Contingency performed their first set in
mid-February at Pearlz a new music venue in Columbia, South Carolina, the
bandleader, Jazz trumpeter, arranger and composer Mark Rapp took time to talk to
us about his career, music and travels. Rapp moved back to South Carolina a
little over one year ago, after spending time refining his artistry in New
Orleans, New York City and Geneva, Switzerland.
“Psycho Jazz Contingency is a new project that I started
in Columbia. I have been back here for a little over a year. I have been getting
plugged into the local scene and to my pleasant surprise there are some world
class amazing musicians here. It is incredible and I should not be surprised by
it, as everywhere that I have traveled there are amazing musicians. I grew up in
South Carolina, but I didn’t expect such a strong Jazz scene in Columbia. I knew
there would be little pockets, a couple of guys playing, but I didn’t realize
there would be cats here that would be really dealing and really playing. I have
been getting into circles and sitting in with a bunch of bands. I started
getting gigs offered to me and then other players would call me to substitute
for their regular gigs around the city,” says Mark Rapp.
We should point out that this is not a story about boy
returns home, because he lost his way along the path to becoming a musician to
be reckoned with. The situation is quite the contrary, as Mark Rapp has played
sold out shows in such highly regarded establishments as New York City’s Blue
Note, San Francisco’s Yoshi’s and Blues Alley in Washington, D.C.
He has also performed at the JVC Newport
Jazz Festival, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at the Lincoln Center and several European
venues. He has also been heralded by the highly respected DownBeat Magazine as
one of the Jazz musicians to keep an eye on.
“I had a strong desire to express the music that I enjoy
and my artistic vision and that was the onus and the genesis of putting the
Psycho Jazz Contingency together,” he says.
Rapp says that the Psycho Jazz Contingency was inspired
by The Song Project, another of his ensembles. “We take any song that we like,
no matter what genre, it can be Country, Heavy Metal, Rock, Rap or classic Jazz
and we reinterpret it and play it in our own fashion. Psycho Jazz Contingency is
a way for me to get things happening on a local level and to have a fun project
that I am doing on a weekly basis. TSP is much more of a special project thing.
TSP will do a weeklong tour in California, but that can take months to book. You
go out and do it, but then there is months of dead space, (before) you go out
and do a festival. This is a way for me to keep things going and to feed my
artistic soul. The Psycho Jazz Contingency is made up of the best musicians
around here. They can stand on their own against anyone from New York to Europe
to wherever. They are great, absolutely great. We play everything, Madonna, The
Cure, Bill Evans, Miles Davis to Radiohead.”
As for what we would hear on this evening, “We just had
Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day, so I was actually thinking of starting with “My
Funny Valentine,” and being inspired by Miles Davis’ 1964 version of “My Funny
Valentine,” which is a little adventurous and exploratory. That is the spirit of
the Psycho Jazz Contingency. It is approaching each and every song (in the
manner in which) Miles approached “Bitches Brew,” but not nearly as cacophonous,
bombastic or crazy, but in that spirit of being open, free and adventurous. For
example the very first gig that Psycho Jazz did, we opened with John Coltrane’s
composition entitled “Africa.” Weeks later I listened back to an MP3 and we
played that tune for thirty minutes. One song for thirty minutes straight!
It was like John Coltrane used to do, he
would play a song for forty-five minutes. With that stretch, we easily went to
five different places, so there were five different songs presented within this
one context. That is the idea, to really
be free as improvisers and to be as melodic as possible at all times, to be as
expressive as you can be and to be in the moment at all times, but to do so with
authenticity, intelligence, with sophistication and with passion.”
While the music business went through a bit of a lull the past few years, Mark
Rapp has been busier than ever. In 2011 he was one of the artists featured on
Disney’s album Everyone Wants To Be A
Cat.
“My band The Mark Rapp Group in on the closing track.
Other artists on this record were Dave Brubeck, Roy Hargrove, Esperanza
Spalding, the Bad Plus and Joshua Redman. It
was an all-star cast. One of the producers of this record produced my debut
record and his name is Jason Oliane. Part
of the concept of this record was to pair established artists with up and coming
artists. He called me and a handful of other up and comers and that are less
known, along with the established artists. We went in and recorded. I guess I am
really the unknown guy on the record, so I’m really lucky and fortunate to have
made the record. We did “Circle of Life,” which is Elton John from
The Lion King.
Ironically it was our least rehearsed
tune that we came in to record,” he recalls.
Rapp teamed up with tenor / alto saxophonist, flutist,
composer and arranger Don Braden to record
Braden – Rapp The Strayhorn Project.
Also appearing on the album are Grammy nominated pianist Gerald Clayton and
vocalist Sachal Vasandani. In some cases
Braden and Rapp altered the arrangements and the melodies.
“The Strayhorn Estate, which is the family of Billy
Strayhorn, loved the record and it was great to have their support.
We contributed three or four
arrangements each. Don contributed three or four, Sachal a handful, Gerald a few
and I did four. The idea was to take the classic Billy Strayhorn repertoire and
to arrange it in our style and for who we are as musicians at this given time
and then to express those tunes within the context of 2011. For example I did
“Isfahan,” which is traditionally played as a ballad. Everybody knows it as a
beautiful ballad. I did it as this McCoy Tyner aggressive, modern, straight
ahead thing and (we received positive reviews), but a lot of the reviewers hated
that I changed that tune so much. I took that as a sign that I am doing
something right. If these critics do not like what I am doing then that means I
am doing something right. The Strayhorn Estate loved it. They loved that tune,
because it was so dramatically different. I think it was his nephew who said (to
me) that is the exact spirit of how Billy lived, always trying to do something,
new, innovative and ahead of his time.
He said Billy would have loved it and I said thank you,” he says.
While he was living in Geneva, Switzerland in 2011 Mark
Rapp recorded the album Good Eats, a
tribute to saxophonist Lou Donaldson. He collaborated with two musicians with
whom he had played in New York City and who were now living in Europe, Hammond
B3 organist Joe Kaplowitz who was living in Croatia and drummer Klemens Marktl
who had moved to Austria. Don Braden played tenor saxophone and alto flute and
Ahmad Mansour was the guitarist, while of course Rapp played the trumpet, the
coronet and the didgeridoo. 
“On one track I played this coronet that I had saved
from a restaurant wall during my time in New Orleans. That was fun and it was
like poetic justice for the coronet to be recorded again after fifteen years and
after being crucified to a restaurant wall. It is nice to play a horn like
that,” he says.
Rapp says that the title of the album
Good Eats is derived from two
sources, “One is kind of tawdry and
sexual, because Lou Donaldson is a dirty old man and if you look at his record
covers there are a lot of sexual innuendos on his covers. A more safe and PG
version is I am a huge fan of the show on the Food Network called
Good Eats and Dalton Brown is the
host. I thought that it would be fun to put the two together. It was also a
mixing pot of all of these different influences from New Orleans, the guys from
New York and now in being in Europe. It was a big melting pot of flavors and
half the record was new arrangements. One half of the record was á la Strayhorn
and the other half of the record we tried to pay homage to Lou Donaldson. We
played in that classic Boogaloo style.
The album was recorded with Don Braden remaining in the
United States. He recorded in New Jersey and then emailed his parts to Mark Rapp
in Switzerland.
“When we recorded, we left
spots for him to record. It came out sounding great and he really took his time
with it. He learned what they rhythm section was doing so he could interact with
us. It came out sounding organic and like he was there in the moment,” says
Rapp.
Reinterpreting the music
of Lou Donaldson for the most part, came easily to Rapp and company and he
credits that to the musicians and most of the tunes were boogaloos, which he
says tend to have simpler melodies.
“There was only one tune
that was kind of tricky and it was called “Spaceman Twist,” which has a fast
running line, which took a few minutes for me to get under my fingers,” says
Rapp.
Reflecting upon the places he has lived and his
evolution as a musician, composer and arranger, Mark Rapp says, “In New Orleans,
I was young, I was in college and I was a Jazzhead. I was very dogmatic about
what Jazz was supposed to be and what it meant. If it wasn’t straight ahead,
then it wasn’t music. I moved to New York and I grew up a little bit and I
opened my ears a lot more. I redefined what music really is.
Music isn’t about how many
sharp nines or how many flat nines you can play or if it is a particular rhythm
or if there is a particular scale that you lean on. It is about intention,
emotional expression and about connecting with other life forms on this planet.
It is definitely intellectual, it is Jazz. It is America’s Classical
music, but it’s also music of love, sadness, joy and pain. The greatest artists
that we love and that are timeless are those artists who hit you on those
emotional levels and that is over and beyond anything that is intellectual.
That’s just raw, life, soulfulness.
New York taught me some of that, but New York also taught me the
seriousness of studying, practicing and getting your ass kicked and how to come
back from that (he laughs). New York is so oversaturated and everybody can play
their ass off. There are thousands of trumpet players and if you heard them
individually you would think they are the most amazing trumpet player on the
planet. The next night you hear five other guys who are equally amazing. It is
absolutely incredible, humbling and sobering. It can very easily be depressing
if you don’t turn it into an encouragement or a drive for yourself to do better.
My first year in New York freaked me out
so much that I couldn’t play my trumpet. I was intimidated about everything to
do with New York. I grew up in
South Carolina in the Bible belt and then I moved to New Orleans, which was sin
city, but on a completely relaxed spectrum when I was playing gigs until five or
six o’clock in the morning and sleeping in until two or three o’clock in the
afternoon. It was a whole different lifestyle and then I moved to New York and
it is just the exact opposite. Oh My God, it’s intense.
You have to walk fast, just walking to
the grocery store you have to be on point. “
Now Mark Rapp has come
full circle and he has returned home to South Carolina where the pace is a more
laid back than New York City, more familiar than Geneva, Switzerland and in a
part of the country that also enjoys a rich heritage in music.
Please visit
Mark Rapp’s website.
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