His fans know him as the leader of the beloved New England pop-rock crew the Push Stars, and industry folks know him as a go-to songwriter:
Chris Trapper's songs have seen countless movies and TV shows, and have been covered by everyone from matchbox twenty frontman Rob Thomas to girl-rockers Antigone Rising.

With the ambitious ''Gone Again,'' Trapper takes a left turn: the album combines his swift, guitar-driven songwriting style with the great Wolverine Jazz Band, a Boston-based seven-piece which for a decade has been an arbiter of traditional Dixieland and New Orleans jazz.

It's Trapper's second solo album - the last was 2002's ''Song from the
Drive-In'' - but it sounds nothing like the Push Stars, still of doubtful future, or anything he's cut before.

Initially nervous about bringing the collaboration before his fans, a one-off gig with the Wolverine at the Lizard Lounge last year proved fruitful: It sold out well in advance, and was all kinds of fun, Trapper said.

He and the band will be appearing at Harpers Ferry this Saturday, and
also at Club 309 in Fall River a week later.

''A lot of my fans who are used to the rock 'n' roll thing were enthused. They didn't quite know what to expect,'' Trapper said. ''When they heard fun, kind of poppy jazz, they loved it.''

''Gone Again'' is a completely original work, with 11 new Trapper tunes. Most rockers who experiment and even cross over (and most straight-laced ''jazz'' jazzmen looking to expand their audience) go with standards to ensure appeal. Confident enough in his songwriting talents - he's been one of Boston's most accomplished pop-rock craftsmen since he moved here from Buffalo in 1991 - Trapper tried on new songs.

He claims to have reams of new material and demos, but when he took
stock, he said he found himself naturally drawn to the more experimental ends: the less radio-obvious, ''B-side'' stuff, he described.

It wasn't Push Stars material, and most sounds exactly like what one
would expect from such a collaboration: acoustic rock songs layered
with clarinet, banjo, trumpet and other jazz infusions.

Repeat listens reveal that the marriage of styles is unquestionably
comfortable, and the listener can sense how each component - Trapper
versus the jazz band - finds ways to enhance and fit the other.

''The exact nature of Dixieland jazz is that it's never the same - we're never going to play the record,'' he said. ''You can have two shows, and it's never the same song, so the first thing that's really great is the spontaneity.''

Trapper's first encounter with the Wolverine Jazz Band was cinematic.
Having first moved to Boston, he had a job at a cookie cart in Faneuil
Hall, and found members of the band jamming on a park bench after his
shift had ended for the night.

In 2000, when the Push Stars were becoming one of college rock's upstart success stories, Trapper and his bandmates were asked to cut a
Steely Dan song - ''Bad Sneakers'' - for the soundtrack to the Jim
Carrey-Renee Zellweger chuckler ''Me, Myself & Irene.'' Struggling with
the guitar solo, Trapper got the idea to haul in jazz musicians to
overdub - contacts he had made with jazz groups now in or tangentially
related to the Wolverine Jazz Band.

''After that, we went on tour, and we never saw them, so this year I
finally called those guys up,'' he said. ''(Bandleader, clarinetist and
saxophonist) John Clark is really open minded toward new concepts. I
mean, he plays songs from the '40s but also likes Eminem and modern
music. We recorded it all live, no ProTools, no anything. They're a
seven-piece, and we tried to put them in isolated sound booths, and
they all looked at me like I was speaking another language. That was
cool for me.''

Trapper dodges questions about the future of the Push Stars - there
are quite a few songs in the can, but a certain inspirational spark is
lacking. He's clearly entranced by the jazz record, whose bubbling
popularity is quickly outshining its status as a lark.

''Originally I was just going to pursue this for six months, and sell the disc from the stage,'' he explained. ''But the response has been so great. I really wanted to get this band heard.''

''The Push Stars always struggled to do things in an organic way, so it's really nice to see old school guys do that naturally. I mean this isn't radio stuff, it isn't polished,'' he added. ''I wanted it to have a pulse. Often these days you can't tell on a recording if a band has real drums, a real bass, real interaction. Here, you can actually hear real people playing.''