A homecoming for trombonist Alex Wasily, who returns to Savannah with Dumpstaphunk
New Orleans funk fusion legends Dumpstaphunk are making their Savannah debut at this year’s Savannah Music Festival as part of the Crescent City Funk event with Cha Wa at Ships of the Sea Museum, but their highly anticipated performance is also a homecoming, of sorts.
Alex Wasily, Dumpstaphunk’s energetic trombone player and horn arranger, is a Savannah native who learned his craft in Savannah schools and is excited to return to his hometown to show his friends, family and instructors how far he’s come since playing in high school bands.
“I’m a proud product of the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System,” said Wasily over the phone.
During our conversation, Wasily is adamant about namedropping the many instructors and mentors that supported him over the years.
“We do it for the love of the educators,” said Wasily.
Wasily is especially grateful to his parents, Rob and Lindsay Norman, who not only introduced him to music, but unwaveringly supported him as he performed hundreds of concerts with top bands at Savannah Arts Academy.
“My mom and stepdad are the reason I got into music,” said Wasily. “They gave me everything, especially my stepdad who gave me the CDs that changed my life—Duke Ellington, Count Basie. He saw me getting excited about music at school. We had to renovate the attic to house his CD collection. It was so dope. I’d go upstairs and borrow a record like it was the library.”
Wasily began playing alto saxophone under “Mr. Murphy” at Bartow Elementary School, before switching to baritone saxophone at Derenne Middle School under the tutelage of music teacher Terry Staton.
Wasily switched instruments again when he went to Savannah Arts Academy—his desire to play in the top bands was stronger than his attachment to saxophone. Having seen SAA’s Skyelight Jazz Band perform at the Johnny Mercer Theatre, Wasily knew that was where he wanted to be.
“Michael Huchinson, the legend, reached out to all the parents and said, ‘Hey, if any of your kids want to switch to trombone, we have slots open for the top band in trombone.’”
Wasily’s mother bought him a trombone and arranged lessons with Carl Polk of the Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra and Savannah Jazz Hall of Famer Teddy Adams. After three months of playing trombone under the direction of Polk and Adams, Wasily was accepted into District Honor Band in ninth grade and became fully invested in music.
“One thing that is great about Savannah Arts is the atmosphere,” explained Wasily. “It wasn’t cool to be bad. It was cool to excel and be into music in your free time. It all had to do with Mr. Hutchinson. I can say, safely, my career wouldn’t be what it is today without the direction of Michael Hutchinson. It changed my life. It was less about playing scales as much as it was learning life lessons through music. Recognizing where you fit in society, what it means to be a musician, what it means to carry on the tradition of being a musician.”
Homegrown musician recounts how Savannah prepared him for touring life
Challenging lessons and a demanding concert schedule under Hutchinson and top Savannah Art Academy bands—including 50 concerts a year with the Skyelight Band, Savannah Jazz Festival, Essentially Ellington concerts—were crucial to Wasily’s development as a professional musician.
“It was as close to the real world of music and the world that I deal in,” said Wasily. “I didn’t even know at the time what a jump start I had on the rest of my peers even in college.”
Wasily attended DePaul University in Chicago, a top-class music school, but he felt leagues ahead of his peers. Because he had already played so much in front of audiences, Wasily had no fear or performance anxiety.
Wasily recalls, “Day one, the director of Jazz Studies, Bob Lark, he marches us all into a room and he says, ‘If you can see yourself doing anything besides performing and playing music for a living, you should probably do that. There’s the door. Congrats on getting into DePaul. No hard feelings if you want to leave. It’s the most difficult, challenging profession ever. It requires your entire soul and every piece of who you are as a person will be attached to this, and if you’re going down that road, we’re here for you. And if you’re not, we’re still here for you.’ Two kids got up and left. It was legendary.”
After years of playing in top bands at DePaul, Wasily hit a rut.
“The perpetuation of the self-deprecating musician is such a thing within certain scenes,” explained Wasily. “I didn’t feel good enough to hang with the scene.”
Wasily quit trombone for three years and got into bartending and craft cocktails instead. It wasn’t until he started performing with Chicago “9-piece funkestra,” Nasty Snacks, that Wasily found joy in music again. Funk music showed him that there was more to music than focusing on complicated jazz changes, and that he could party and have fun while making great music.
His time in the Chicago funk scene led to an opportunity to be part of Dumpstaphunk’s regional horn section. To save money, Dumpstaphunk would use local horn sections when they toured so that they wouldn’t have to play for extra meals and hotel rooms.
Dumpstaphunk follow in the footsteps of the Neville family and New Orleans funk icons, The Meters. Cousins Ivan and Ian Neville, alongside Tony Hall, Nick Daniels, John Michael Bradford and Deven Trusclair, have built upon their family’s New Orleans legacy, shaping Dumpstaphunk into the city’s pre-eminent 21st-century funk-fusion ensemble.
“I would describe them as kingpins in the New Orleans scene, if not just the funk scene,” said Wasily. “A lot of them really run New Orleans. The magic of New Orleans is that it is the perfect balance of being rooted in tradition, but also Dumpstahphunk pushes the limits of what is traditional and what is modern, bangin’ funk music.”
Wasily’s first Chicago gig with Dumpstaphunk was the same night he was supposed to meet his future mother-in-law.
“She was like, ‘Ah, the Nevilles?! I know Dumpstahfunk. Can I come?’,” recalled Wasily. “Instead of it being a potential catastrophe, it ended up being a super fun night; we crushed the gig.”
Wasily made such a good impression on Dumpstaphunk that they invited him and his friend to play with them at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, and then accompany them on their European tour. By that point, Wassily had become an official full-time member.
“We were the perfect combination of available, affordable, and good at our instruments,” Wasily said with a laugh. “That was 8 years ago, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.”
Outside of his work with Dumpstaphunk, Wasily is constantly busy with other projects and collaborations. His website features an incredibly long list of artists he has performed, recorded, or toured with including Dave Matthews Band, The Isley Brothers, Bob Weir, Christina Aguilera, Ms. Lauren Hill, Ziggy Marley, and Carlos Santana. Recently, he even got to perform with Lenny Kravitz at a private party for President Biden.
His personal endeavors all fall under his Very Good brand (“It’s not the best, but it’s very good.”) which include his weekly Very Good Monday parties at the Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles, monthly Very Good DJ sets, Very Good brand cocktails, and his band, Alex Wasily’s Very Good Band, which is about to release an album of instrumental funk.
With over 200 flights a year, jet setting between his home in Los Angeles and gigs around the world, Wasily is living the musician dream. But Wasily is especially excited for his Savannah debut, where he will be able to show the utmost gratitude to all the people that got him here.
“I keep thinking about my band directors and my parents,” said Wasily. “I’ve always wanted to make them proud and show them all the time and energy and money and commitment they put into me—instead of being a total [expletive] in high school—I would love to give them a show worthy of the time and energy they gave to me, and I feel SO strongly about that.”
If You Go >>
What: Savannah Music Festival presents Crescent City Funk with Dumpstahphunk/Cha Wa
When: 5:30 p.m., April 5
Where: North Garden Assembly Room at Ships of the Sea Museum, 41 Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd.
Cost: $42
Info: savannahmusicfestival.org
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Dumpstaphunk trombonist Alex Wasily returns home at Savannah Music Festival
