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Paul Shapiro: Midnight Minyan
Tuesday July 18, 2006 at 10:00pm
CLOSED: Tonic
107 Norfolk Street
New York City, 10002 Get Directions
We'll have a great crew on hand- Steven Bernstein, Mike Cohen, Brian Mitchell, Dave Hofstra and Tony Lewis.

Here's a new review from Seth Rogovoy, author of The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lovers Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music

21st-Century Transcendence Harkens to Early Hasidim

One of the best albums to come out of the new Jewish music scene so far was Paul Shapiros Midnight Minyan, his 2003 collection of tunes from the Sabbath morning service reconfigured for a jazz ensemble and filtered through a scrim of Afro-Cuban and R&B influences. It was at once a terrific jazz album jazz is notoriously well suited to such cross-cultural attempts, with such greats as John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, and Sonny Rollins having looked afar for ways to enliven the typical stew of ballads and blues and a brilliant commentary on the strength and elasticity of the Jewish prayer melodies.
Shapiro may just have topped himself creatively with his follow-up effort, Its in the Twilight, which was released earlier this year in the Radical Jewish Culture series on John Zorns Tzadik label. Joining bandleader Shapiro, who handles the tenor saxophone duties, is an all-star lineup of downtown jazzmen, including fellow tenor Peter Apfelbaum, pianist Brian Mitchell, bassist Booker King, drummer Tony Lewis, and trumpeter Steven Bernstein, who, like Shapiro, has been mining traditional Jewish music for about a decade and coming up with some remarkable juxtapositions.
This time out, Shapiros repertoire consists of eight numbers either taken from or inspired by the Friday night Sabbath liturgy. Some are wholly original melodies, such as his Lecha Dodi Twilight, and others are improvisations upon preexisting melodies, such as his version of the Kiddush, the blessing over the wine, which perhaps aptly has the bit of a flavor of a woozy, New Orleans funeral march.
Friday night is as much a time for happiness and celebration as it is for introspection, and one can just imagine pushing the chairs and table out of the way after a delicious Shabbat dinner and dancing around to Oy Veys Mir, a Cab Calloway-style jump blues number that quotes liberally from Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn and other Yiddish swing-era hits.
Shapiro is one of many jazz musicians of his generation who, after years of playing all kinds of styles in his case including funk with the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, avant-garde with the Microscopic Septet, hip-hop with Queen Latifah, rock with Lou Reed, and pop with Ben Folds are coming around to the music of their forefathers, and reinvesting it with a contemporary imprint whose effects will undoubtedly reverberate both musically and spiritually to a whole new, and younger audience.
In this way, Shapiro and his peers are very much the heirs of the early Hasidic rebbes, many of whom took folk songs from their co-territorial surroundings and elevated them into nigunim, ecstatic melodies of mystical transcendence.

THE NEW YORK TIMES:
As on his new album Its in the Twilight (Tzadik), Mr. Shapiro, a tenor saxophonist, transforms the ritual of a Friday night Shabbat service into a rollicking downtown jam. His co-conspirators are Steven Bernstein on slide trumpet, Peter Apfelbaum on tenor saxophone, Brian Mitchell on piano, Booker King on bass and Tony Lewis on drums.

THE NEW YORKER:
The saxophonist Paul Shapiro doesnt tread lightly upon the Jewish-themed music he plays. His latest CD on the Tzadik label, Its in the Twilight, displays all the turbulent beauty and tradition-bucking funk that his growing coterie of fans now expects.

TIME OUT NEW YORK:
Tenor saxophonist Paul Shapiro (whos 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, Its in the Twilight.

SQUIDS EAR:
It's big, it's fat, it's sassy and it smells like pastrami (and salsa). No, it's not your aunt Sadie; it's the new Paul Shapiro record. On this, his second release on the Tzadik label, Paul Shapiro once again delivers a platter dripping with soulful and sumptuous sounds that will make you feel good inside and out.

But more relevant than a dissection of the album track by track, lets look at the band. From the ground up, this band is a solid as they come. Starting with the rhythm section of Booker King and Tony Lewis on bass and drums respectively, these guys are locked in. When listening, it's obvious they have been rhythmic partners for well over 10 years now. They lay a firm groundwork for the band so every step is steady and confident. With sensitive interplay, they put joy in the rhythm even during the most solemn of passages. Layer that with Brian Mitchell, pianist. His playing is well informed, thoughtful and just downright upright. It's obvious he's been putting in his time in the bluenote woodshed, his playing dripping with emotion. He makes every note count as both member of the rhythm section and as a soloist. Add to all that the horn section. Big, bold and brimming with authority, saxist/leader Shapiro, saxist Peter Apfelbaum and trumpeter Steven Bernstein sound as if they have been playing together for ever. Based on Shapiro's solid arrangements, these three speak as one and as individuals in a most authoritative manner.

BUFFALO NEWS: JEFF SIMON
Talmudic soul jazz has arrived. Are you ready for a jazz band with klezmer in its bloodstream? How about boogie down horas or music for Hebrew prayers based on the simplest montuno rhythms of salsa bands everywhere? No? Well, how about 16th century Kabbalist poetry inspiring downtown New York City music with a groove that's reminiscent of nothing so much as the African jazz of the great Abdullah Ibrahim? Would you believe that the most melodic and sheerly enjoyable jazz record to come along in many months from jazz's younger generation is this monster delight from Shapiro, a fat-toned tenor power player, composer and bandleader who is a one-man jazz diversity movement? For anyone who has forgotten how much passionate fun jazz can be, Paul Shapiro and this bunch are a gift from on high, brought to us by John Zorn's record label.

ALL ABOUT JAZZ: John Kelman
Reconvening the same group that made his debut, Midnight Minyan (Tzadik, 2003), so engaging, tenor saxophonist Paul Shapiro's new release is an even more exuberant affair. Combining a wealth of musical styles with the distinctive Jewish flavour that has made John Zorns Radical Jewish Culture series so unpredictable, Shapiro proves that twilight neednt be a time for introspection. If anything, Shapiros music aligns itself with the idea of twilight as a transitional meeting time, creating something not of any one style, but instead a nexus point where various elements conjoin into something altogether new.

ALL ABOUT JAZZ: Nic Jones
If this is an example of radical Jewish culture, as Tzadik bills it, then a whole lot of Gentiles would be doing themselves an enormous favour if they tapped into it. Listeners of all cultures from around the world are familiar with the idea of the keeper, meaning an item that will find a permanent home on their shelves, as opposed to landing in the racks of the local second-hand store, and I knew this title was a keeper by the end of track two
If theres any justice in the world, this disc will be figuring highly in those year-end polls. It shows the degree to which improvised music can still be creative when a tradition is considered in its entirety, not just as something worthy only of unquestioning reverence.

ALL ABOUT JAZZ: Jerry DSouza
The blessings of the sabbath were clearly upon Paul Shapiro when he wrote the music for and recorded this album. On Midnight Minyan, his first record as a leader, he dwelt on Saturday mornings and the Jewish tradition. This time he turns back the clock to Friday evenings and the glow of twilight that the sabbath brings. He has the same band of musicians in tow; they make this a listening experience that will long linger in memory.

Shapiro writes with traditional Jewish motifs and then expands them into startling essays, the music leaving its mark as it goes past different signposts. Those can be the beauty of orchestrated ensemble playing, an exhilarating sense of swing, or a ride out into the wide open where content is moulded by free form.
EJAZZNEWS.COM:
Ultimately, Shapiro proclaims an overriding sense of newness sparked by wit and the pursuance of good-cheer, throughout this undeniably compelling effort that should not be overlooked.



Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of globetrotterny.
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