Don Vappie

Don Vappie is a world renowned jazz musician and presenter from New Orleans. He leads the Creole Jazz Serenaders, a classic New Orleans jazz orchestra, as well as his various jazz and R&B combos. He has produced and recorded numerous CDs and film sound tracks and was the main focus of the PBS documentary , American Creole: New Orleans Reunion. In the span of a forty-year career,  he has performed with such notables as Peggy Lee,  Carol Channing,  Wynton Marsalis, Eric Clapton, Bette Midler and Cheick Hamala Diabate. As a headliner, he has performed at numerous festivals and venues around the world. As an educator, he has participated, presented and/or performed for jazz programs at such noted venues as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Tulane University, Historic New Orleans Collection, NPR, Smithsonian, Appalachian State University. He currently serves as jazz guitar instructor at Loyola University and is a member of the Loyola Jazz Faculty Combo. He is also an instructor at the Don “Moose” Jamison Heritage School of Music. His transcriptions of early jazz recordings are available from Warner Bros., and his orchestral arrangements for banjo and orchestra are distributed worldwide on the NAXOS label.