Think of "traditional" or "classic" New Orleans jazz and what comes to mind? The scratches, hisses, and pops of a mono recording from the dawn of the recording era? A group of venerable musicians faithfully playing the same old tunes, "The Saints," "Down By The Riverside," etc., according to the same old formula: play the melody, take solos, repeat the melody? Did you just stifle a yawn?

Well, that's changing now, thanks to Don Vappie and his group of Creole Jazz Serenaders," who, like an ...