Bio
"One can't help but sense a distinct identity to Rapp in both his composing and playing... and for this reason, we will be hearing a lot more from him." - Jazz Improv NY Magazine
Trumpeter, composer and arranger Mark Rapp is featured alongside Roy Hargrove, Dave Brubeck, Esperanza Spalding, The Bad Plus, Joshua Redman and many more on Disney's recent release "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" (Feb 2011). With Rapp's celebrated 2009 debut release "Token Tales" and being named a "Top Emerging Trumpeter" by Downbeat Magazine the year before, Rapp is quickly establishing himself as one of the most interesting, cool and creative artists in modern jazz.
Rapp released an industry first "Applum" (a complete multimedia album experience packaged and distributed for the iPad and iPhone) with The Song Project (thesongproject.net), a unique trio co-led with guitarist/vocalist Derek Lee Bronston. Rapp also recorded an amazing tribute to Billy Strayhorn CD (bradenrapp.com) with saxophone great Don Braden, GRAMMY-nominee Gerald Clayton on piano and vocal sensation Sachal Vasandani.
Rapp has played sold out shows at the Blue Note (NY), Joe’s Pub, Yoshi’s (San Fran) and such venues as Blues Alley (D.C.), the JVC Newport Jazz Festival, Dizzy’s at Jazz Lincoln Center, JazzTime Festival (Croatia), Jazzland (Vienna), Jazz Standard (New York) and more. Mark was named a "top emerging trumpeter" by Downbeat Magazine, featured on a Travel Channel documentary and has played with such diverse artists as Branford Marsalis to Hootie and the Blowfish.
Constantly performing in support of his various projects including Good Eats, Token Tales, The Strayhorn Project and The Song Project, Mark resides in Geneva, Switzerland and New York, NY. Mark plays a custom Monette Prana LTJ with a Monette B3 mouthpiece, a custom Monette Ajna I Prana trumpet with a Monette B2GS3 88 mouthpiece and a Kanstul flugelhorn with a Brasswind Research mouthpiece.
How Jazz Trumpeters Understand Their Music: Twenty-Seven Interviews (By Dr. Thomas R. Erdmann, Edwin Mellen Press, 2010)
1. Vince DiMartino 2. Kenny Wheeler 3. Terence Blanchard 4. Lew Soloff 5. Rick Braun 6. Freddie Hubbard 7. Dave Douglas 8. Irvin Mayfield 9. Darren Barrett 10. Jeff Beal 11. Eddie Henderson 12. Donald Byrd 13. Tomasz Stanko 14. Herb Alpert 15. Wallace Roney 16. Enrico Rava 17. Vaughn Nark 18. David Weiss 19. Brian Lynch 20. Mark Isham 21. Eddie Allen 22. Chris Botti 23 Mathias Eick 24. Richard Boulger 25. Tim Hagans 26. Nathan Eklund 27. Mark Rapp
There’s a new breed of young trumpeters coming down the road. These new young lions have studied the playing and music of bop and hard bop masters such as Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan and Kenny Dorham, among others. Having looked at the innovations of forward-thinkers like Don Cherry, Lester Bowie and Dave Douglas, the young firebrands have also not neglected the funk, jazz-rock, soul and fusion of artists like Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock. The resultant music they create melds and brings together the radio music of their youth with the history of their horn to find fresh ways to approach and fashion a style of playing more oriented toward groove without losing modern approaches to upper chordal harmonic structures so prevalent in the jazz music of the late 20th century. Perhaps one of the best examples of the direction being taken by this new breed is played by Mark Rapp.
Rapp enrolled in Winthrop University in South Carolina, studying trumpet with Dr. Ian Pearson. After graduating, and following discussions with Wynton Marsalis, Rapp moved to New Orleans to study jazz under Ellis Marsalis while earning a Masters in Jazz from the University of New Orleans. Five years later and after performing extensively throughout the city, Rapp moved to New York. Finding the initial year there a tough go, his perseverance paid off and the now mid-30s year-old musician has been turning heads ever since.
The critical praise has, as one would expect from the above, been great. In 2007 Down Beat listed Rapp on their very short list of, “Top emerging jazz trumpeters.” JazzTimes also had great praise, writing, “(Rapp) has his own way of defining jazz, which keeps its standard principles… while delving into the experimental side."
Read an in-depth interview: http://jazzreview.com/article/review-7020.html
