Paul Shapiro

The boundary between classic rhythm and blues and jazz was once porous territory, and this joyful ensemble, led by the exuberant saxophonist Shapiro, is always willing to do the time warp to revive that openhearted embrace of genres, even mixing in Jewish musical themes as well.     The New Yorker

Reedist-vocalist Paul Shapiro stirs klezmer, swing, R&B and other hearty sounds into his Ribs and Brisket Revue, seasoning it all with a potent Yiddish tinge.    Time Out New York

Transforms the ritual of a Friday night Shabbat service into a rollicking downtown jam.   The New York Times

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The boundary between classic rhythm and blues and jazz was once porous territory, and this joyful ensemble, led by the exuberant saxophonist Shapiro, is always willing to do the time warp to revive that openhearted embrace of genres, even mixing in Jewish musical themes as well.     The New Yorker

Reedist-vocalist Paul Shapiro stirs klezmer, swing, R&B and other hearty sounds into his Ribs and Brisket Revue, seasoning it all with a potent Yiddish tinge.    Time Out New York

Transforms the ritual of a Friday night Shabbat service into a rollicking downtown jam.   The New York Times

As the name suggests, the saxophonist Paul Shapiro’s Ribs and Brisket Revue takes Jewish-themed music through a few twists and turns, delivering joyous sounds that find room in the mix for R. & B., jazz, and assorted off-beat strains.   The New Yorker

Hard blowing, finger-snapping, klezmer-inflected jazz and wailing big city blues that suddenly slips into Yiddish. Straight No Chaser UK 

The downtown New York jazz version of Jewish novelty maestro Mickey Katz.  Buffalo News

Tenor saxophonist Paul Shapiro (who’s played alongside artists as far-flung as Michael Jackson, Lou Reed and the Microscopic Septet) leads a band of friends in the feisty, funky arrangements of Jewish themes found on his new Tzadik CD, It’s in the Twilight.   Time Out New York

Loosen your Borscht Belt for a rollicking album that recaptures that long-ago era when jazz and Yiddish music blended into a zany kind of swing. Saxophonist Paul Shapiro and his quintet focus on songs about food, beginning with the hilarious title track; their klezmer-reggae buffet mixes shtick and sizzle with the complete menu of a weekend stay at a Catskills resort. AARP

Everything here is lively, witty, well-played and just plain excellent. And it all serves as a potent reminder that a jazz record can still be a whole mess of freewheeling fun without sacrificing a lick of intelligence or creativity. Jazziz

The most impressive track on the album is the first one “Essen,” which is a massive collage of Yiddish swing, theatre-cabaret, gypsy-punk and hip-hop thrusts. What “Bohemian Rhapsody” is to Queen, “Essen” is to Paul Shapiro. Jazz review.com

About Paul Shapiro Residency  at John Zorn’s The Stone:

Reedist-vocalist Paul Shapiro is best known for his Ribs and Brisket Revue, in which he stirs up klezmer, swing, R&B and other hearty sounds, and adds a potent Yiddish tinge. You can catch that group on Feb 7, but this residency will also showcase other Shapiro projects: film music (Feb 4), a new album (Feb 5), Midnight Minyan (Feb 6) and, perhaps most promising, a reunion of his ’80s punk-funk outfit, Foreign Legion (Feb 8).

Paul [Shapiro] is very spirited and into his brand of Jewish music. He’s 100% musician.  Hankus Netsky  Director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and chair of Contemporary Composition and Jazz Studies New England Conservatory of Music

Yiddish New York  “Pete and Paul A Fargenign”  Clemente Soto Velez  107 Suffolk StreetPete Sokolow’s Yiddish American Jass Band is joined by Paul Shapiro’s Ribs & Brisket Revue for a rousing Yiddish Swing Dance Party featuring amazing vocalists The Shvesters of Swing Joanne Borts, Tamar Korn, Cilla Owens & Eleanor Reissa.  

Mr. Midnight Minyan  Paul Shapiro’s powerful brew of traditional Jewish music, Blue Note jazz and R&B.  Click on George Robinson - Special To The Jewish Week  

Ribs and Brisket Revue revives Yiddish Swing     Click on- The Jewish Advocate  

A Big Bootin’ Tenor Sound   http://shirimkhadashim.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-big-bootin.html

REVIEW  Shofarot Verses in All About Jazz by Eyal Hareuveni

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/shofarot-verses-paul-shapiro-tzadik-review-by-eyal-hareuveni.php#.VBCGhig6B60

The New York Times  Paul Shapiro’s Stone Residency 

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2014/02/16/nyregion/20140216JOINTss.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

Paul Shapiro Residency at The Stone

WALL STREET JOURNAL POST ON NEW YEAR’S DAY AT CITY WINERY

http://www.wsj.com/articles/celebrating-the-jewish-influence-on-jazz-1419554359

About Midnight Minyan:  

“...Shapiro transforms the ritual of a Friday night Shabbat service into a rollicking downtown jam.”   Nate Chinen  The New York Times

“...a bubbling brew of soulful Jewish traditional music reimagined by someone who grew up playing tenor and flute while listening to Blue Note records and John Coltrane.” George Robinson The Jewish Week

“...a brilliant synthesis of klezmer and hard bop. The CD’s money track is a rousing rendition of “La Chaim.” He takes the drinking toast from “Fiddler on the Roof” and plays it like Sam Butera and Louis Prima.  Will Friedwald  the New York Sun

“Paul Shapiro’s Midnight Minyan could well stand as one of the supreme achievements of creative, modern Jewish jazz.”

Seth Rogovoy  Berkshire Jewish Voice

“Shapiro leads an outstanding sextet through some Jewish classics. Incorporating klezmer and Oriental modes, Shapiro’s approach is still surprisingly modern and quite swinging. Shapiro plays tenor and soprano with potent authority.”

Mitch Myers   Downbeat

“Midnight Minyan is a bubbling brew of soulful Jewish traditional music reimagined by someone who grew up playing tenor and flute while listening to Blue Note records and John Coltrane…a heady mixture of Middle-Eastern modes and bristling backbeats.”

George Robinson   The Jewish Week

“Mr. Shapiro’s “Midnight Minyan” is a brilliant synthesis of klezmer and hard bop. The CD’s money track is a rousing rendition of “La Chaim.” He takes the drinking toast from “Fiddler on the Roof” and plays it like Sam Butera and Louis Prima. This is a tenor exhibition of rare chutzpah, complete with honks, squeals, growls, abrupt, carnival-like tempo changes, and the noises of a cheering crowd of admirers. In 2002, my favorite single track on a CD was Cassandra Wilson singing “Darkness on the Delta”.  So far this year, Mr. Shapiro’s “La Chaim” is the leading contender.” 

Will Friedwald   The New York Sun

“...the aesthetic is something like a bar mitzvah afterparty, soaked in Manischewitz and smoky lounge jazz.  Liturgical material and Oriental-mode musings make up the tunestack.”         

Mark Schwartz   Barnes and Noble

“Jewish music is sexy.  Slow, meandering melodies conjure hot, arid lands or intimate moments at the synagogue...  Midnight Minyan breaks through the usually nostalgic sounding songs with brassy panache”.  

Celeste Sunderland   All About Jazz 

“On his first solo release saxophonist Paul Shapiro, who has played with everyone from Lou Reed to Ben Folds Five, offers several delightful rhythms… Shapiro’s leadership is forthright and detailed.  Midnight Minyan is all the better for it.” 

Michael J. Ryan   Boston Herald

“The venerable melodies receive appealing contemporary treatments and are complemented by excellent mainstream improvisations.  Shapiro’s own “Lester Young’s Misheberakh’ does in fact evoke the cool, melodic style of Young, as does the tenorist’s smooth sound and laid-back improvisation.”

David Franklin   Jazz Times

“Saxophonist Paul Shapiro addresses the religious music of the Jewish tradition from a New York Downtown jazz perspective, and comes up with a very appealing hybrid in the process.”

Kenny Mathieson   Jazzwise

“From the opening moments when it becomes clear that bandleader Shapiro has actually gone to the familiar ‘Ma Lecha Hayam’ (What is happening, ye ocean) and made it work perfectly as a rhumba, this album demands attention and rewards that attention with absolute pleasure.”   

Ari Davidow   KlezmerShack

“I really loved Shapiro’s two original pieces.  The first one, a klezmer dance piece, ‘Freigish Behavior’ features the full Minyan band in full force.  The second one, ‘Lester Young’s Misheberakh’ is even better.”

Eyal Hareuveni   Squid’s Ear

“The ensemble occasionally projects notions of being in a smoky after-hours jazz joint, or perhaps enjoying the sometimes vivacious undertakings of a Jewish wedding.  No doubt, there’s a lot of goodness going on as Shapiro pegs a bona fide winner here!”

Glenn Astarita  All Music Guide

“While many of the neo-klezmer scene bring jazz into klezmer, some hepkatz bring some klezo-dynamics into small band modern jazz.  So it is with saxman to the stars Paul Shapiro, who’s debut disc ‘Midnight Minyan’ is a sextet date where exotic, midnight in Casablanca modal melody is injected into a context of piquant, ultra-modern but thoroughly swinging bebop (with a jump-blues chaser on the side).”

Mark Keresman  jazzreview.com

“There is, however, a thriving genre of contemporary Jewish music that could well be the elusive ‘Jewish jazz’ that listeners and musicians alike have been seeking for years.  And Paul Shapiro’s Midnight Minyan could well stand as one of the supreme achievements of creative, modern Jewish jazz.”

Seth Rogovoy  Berkshire Jewish Voice

There's a version of "Ma Lecha Hayam" from the Hallel prayer done as a rumba, a raucous rendition of "To Life" from "Fiddler On the Roof" with a tango feel and an astounding transformation of the melody used for the blessings prior to chanting the haftarah in which the tune is reborn as a Latin jazz mambo.

Jon Kalish  The Forward

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