The New Orleans Jazz Vipers are a seven-piece swing band playing regularly to enthusiastic audiences in New Orleans and all over the world. The band's repertoire comes from the likes of Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dicky Wells, Benny Carter, and Count Basie, including well-known favorites and more obscure treasures.
Founding members Joe Braun (saxophone), John Rodli (acoustic guitar) and Robert Snow (acoustic bass) first met in 1995 when they were part of the vibrant street music scene in Jackson Square. Gradually the band evolved to its present formation. Trumpeter extraordinaire Charlie Fardella joined in the summer of 2002. Bass saxophonist Tom Saunders, whose extensive knowledge of the traditional jazz repertoire has been honed by years as a DJ at WWOZ, joined the band soon after, followed by Bruce Brackman on clarinet. The most recent and very welcome addition to the band is Matt Rhody on violin . Lead vocals are handled by Joe, John, Tom and Charlie, and all the members of the band provide backing vocals.
Their most recent CD, "Hope You're Comin' Back", won the 2006 Best of the
Beat Award for Best Traditional Jazz Album. The band has also won the 2005 Big Easy Award for Best Traditional Jazz Band as well as the 2004 "Best of the Beat" award for Best Traditional Jazz Album (for the album "Live on Frenchmen Street"). In 2001 and 2003 they won the "Best of the Beat" Award for Best Emerging Traditional Jazz Band. The band was voted one of the top three jazz bands in the 2004 Reader’s Poll in Where Y’at Magazine.
Part of the unique sound of the Jazz Vipers comes from the fact that they rarely use any amplification, and they are part of a growing number of bands on Frenchmen Street who trust that the audience will eventually quiet down enough to enjoy the music. When necessary, mikes are used and set-up is minimal. The sound of the band is at the same time retro, full of energy, and unpretentious, with both up-tempo dance numbers and well-chosen ballads; it has been aptly described as neo-trad-jazz. The Vipers are popular with swing dancers and the music appeals to audiences of all ages. To quote the review of their latest CD in offBEAT Magazine: "Above all else, these are cool musicians, fully cognizant that less is more and that jazz.is dance music."
A 2007 review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
by Mark S. Tucker
Now, this is jazz the way Louis Armstrong meant it to be. There are also bits of Charlie Christian, Cab Calloway, Django, and many of the people who, directly or otherwise, influenced Dan Hicks and his infamous Licks, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel, the Manhattan Transfer, and all the best swing moderns. The Jazz Vipers caught the historic vibe far more squarely than the rock and E-Z jazz estimables did, and their repertoire is smoky, seductive, languid, friendly, and jump. We Baby Boomers may have had some righteously hot licks and pounding rhythms from rocking and rolling songsmiths, but our parents and their forebears weren't exactly unhip to the groove either, not with music like this. In case ya didn't know it, "revivalist" ventures on this order are way the hell cool
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French Quarter Festival Crowd 2008
Review by: Dan Willging (Dirty Linen, December ’07 / January ’08 Issue 133)
With the wretched aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans lost a lot of its invaluable cultural resources as flocks of musicians, chefs, artists, and writers sought refuge in other cities. It’s a frightening situation because those remaining realize that civic culture is the city’s biggest asset and one that’s paramount in the modern reconstruction era. So bully for the Jazz Vipers, who address that sentiment on the beautiful, breezy title track, “I Hope You’re Comin’ Back to New Orleans.”
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