Big Naptar

Big Naptar, a six-piece band featuring two sax players, formed in 1970 in Richmond, Virginia

Deke Naptar arrived in Richmond, in 1968 to attend drama school, but quickly dropped out and embarked on a decade of homeless drifting, multiple misdemeanor arrests and local fame as an impulsive performer who never stopped performing, on stage or off. Big Naptar was originally put together just to provide Deke with a launching pad, but the band soon abandoned that effort and left to perform their own material.

Naptar began attempting to forge a marriage between elemental rock and free jazz. Group improvisation, the bands original modus operandi, soon began to incorporate structure and song writing, but the search for spontaneous invention always prevailed, simply because none of us were inclined to play the same thing twice.