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‘Ribs & Brisket Revue’ and all that Jewish jazz
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BY: ARLENE FINE Senior Staff Reporter
When jazz and R&B musician Paul Shapiro was 15, his love of music was so profound that “baseball dropped to a distant second, and music rose to a brilliant first,” he says.
“But my Long Island parents were sure if I pursued my interest in music, I would end up in the gutter. Luckily, that did not happen.”
It was only after Shapiro graduated from McGill University with high praise from his music professors that his parents did a 180 and became his biggest boosters. With saxophone and clarinet in hand, Shapiro headed for Manhattan and got gigs almost immediately in hip jazz and R&B clubs.
“I wrote my own music and was a bandleader for funky, punky rock bands and played sessions with Lou Reed and Queen Latifah,” he says. He got into Jewish jazz after he signed with the Radical Jewish Culture Division of John Zorn’s Tzadik label and began digging deep into the roots of Jewish music. “That’s when I saw a clear connection with jazz music.” His first release under the Zorn label was “Midnight Minyan.”
Shapiro, along with three other musicians and two vocalists, will perform his acclaimed “Ribs & Brisket Revue,” a cabaret-style concert of 1940s Jewish jazz, Yiddish swing, and “kosher-style blues,” at the JCC’s Stonehill auditorium on Sat., Feb. 9, at 8 p.m.
“The more research I did on Jewish jazz performed by non-Jewish performers, I found a niche I really loved,” enthuses Shapiro. “Ribs & Brisket Revue” shows the crossover between Afro-American and American jazz and Yiddish-style jazz. (Hence the title of the show).
“It was amazing to discover that Slim Gaillard’s (he wrote ‘Flat Foot Floogie’) ‘Matzo Balls’ and Henry Nemo’s ‘A Bee Gezindt’ were recorded by Cab Calloway, a black jazz musician,” says Shapiro. “I love the hard swing and back beat fun of these pieces, that I play with a bouncy Jewish jump.”
Also included in the program is Benny Goodman’s 1940s tune “My Little Cousin” (based on the Yiddish tune “Di Grine Kuzine”). “Benny Goodman had a young girl singer with his band at that time n Peggy Lee n who performed this song. It begins with a klezmer trumpet introduction with Goodman playing a slow, laid-back jazzy version of the melody of the original ‘Di Grine Kuzine,’ and it is cool to listen and know exactly where this is coming from.”
During his regular performances at the Cornelia Street Café in Manhattan’s West Village or on tour, Shapiro has a steady repartee with the audience and band members. “One person brought me a vintage recording of Sophie Tucker’s (‘Last of the Red Hot Mamas’) 1923 hit ‘Mama Goes Where Papa Goes (Or Mama Don’t Go Out Tonight),’” says Shapiro. “As a young performer, Sophie, who had played vaudeville and burlesque, listened to black singers in Harlem. She belts out that song just like a black blues singer. It has been recorded by many other artists, black and white, who emulate her bluesy sound.”
Black performers like Cab Calloway sings “Everybody eats when they come to my house ... you get the bagel, fagel … it’s on the fendel, Mendel,” because up until the ’20s and ’30s, most of the spoken language by New York Jews was still Yiddish, says Shapiro. “Many blacks worked in Jewish establishments and picked up the rhythm and some of the words of the dialect.”
Shapiro, making his second trip to Cleveland, is looking forward to ‘’jiving” here. “I love it when the performance begins to gel and we are doing what we are supposed to do,” he says. “It’s a great thrill when audience members begin to shout Yiddish expressions right back to us. With all the great Jewish jazz going on and the R&B material putting the starch on the collar, the performance is much greater than the sum of its parts.”
Generous support from Roe Green and the Green Arts Fund of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland has helped make the JCC’s Arts & Culture season possible.
afine@cjn.org
WHAT: Paul Shapiro’s Ribs & Brisket Revue
WHERE: JCC’s Stonehill Auditorium
WHEN: Sat., Feb. 9
TIME: Pre-Concert HE’BREW beer tasting from 6:30-7:30. Concert begins at 8
CONTACT: 216-593-6258, www.clevejcc.org, www.tickets.com or 800-766-6048
“But my Long Island parents were sure if I pursued my interest in music, I would end up in the gutter. Luckily, that did not happen.”
It was only after Shapiro graduated from McGill University with high praise from his music professors that his parents did a 180 and became his biggest boosters. With saxophone and clarinet in hand, Shapiro headed for Manhattan and got gigs almost immediately in hip jazz and R&B clubs.
“I wrote my own music and was a bandleader for funky, punky rock bands and played sessions with Lou Reed and Queen Latifah,” he says. He got into Jewish jazz after he signed with the Radical Jewish Culture Division of John Zorn’s Tzadik label and began digging deep into the roots of Jewish music. “That’s when I saw a clear connection with jazz music.” His first release under the Zorn label was “Midnight Minyan.”
Shapiro, along with three other musicians and two vocalists, will perform his acclaimed “Ribs & Brisket Revue,” a cabaret-style concert of 1940s Jewish jazz, Yiddish swing, and “kosher-style blues,” at the JCC’s Stonehill auditorium on Sat., Feb. 9, at 8 p.m.
“The more research I did on Jewish jazz performed by non-Jewish performers, I found a niche I really loved,” enthuses Shapiro. “Ribs & Brisket Revue” shows the crossover between Afro-American and American jazz and Yiddish-style jazz. (Hence the title of the show).
“It was amazing to discover that Slim Gaillard’s (he wrote ‘Flat Foot Floogie’) ‘Matzo Balls’ and Henry Nemo’s ‘A Bee Gezindt’ were recorded by Cab Calloway, a black jazz musician,” says Shapiro. “I love the hard swing and back beat fun of these pieces, that I play with a bouncy Jewish jump.”
Also included in the program is Benny Goodman’s 1940s tune “My Little Cousin” (based on the Yiddish tune “Di Grine Kuzine”). “Benny Goodman had a young girl singer with his band at that time n Peggy Lee n who performed this song. It begins with a klezmer trumpet introduction with Goodman playing a slow, laid-back jazzy version of the melody of the original ‘Di Grine Kuzine,’ and it is cool to listen and know exactly where this is coming from.”
During his regular performances at the Cornelia Street Café in Manhattan’s West Village or on tour, Shapiro has a steady repartee with the audience and band members. “One person brought me a vintage recording of Sophie Tucker’s (‘Last of the Red Hot Mamas’) 1923 hit ‘Mama Goes Where Papa Goes (Or Mama Don’t Go Out Tonight),’” says Shapiro. “As a young performer, Sophie, who had played vaudeville and burlesque, listened to black singers in Harlem. She belts out that song just like a black blues singer. It has been recorded by many other artists, black and white, who emulate her bluesy sound.”
Black performers like Cab Calloway sings “Everybody eats when they come to my house ... you get the bagel, fagel … it’s on the fendel, Mendel,” because up until the ’20s and ’30s, most of the spoken language by New York Jews was still Yiddish, says Shapiro. “Many blacks worked in Jewish establishments and picked up the rhythm and some of the words of the dialect.”
Shapiro, making his second trip to Cleveland, is looking forward to ‘’jiving” here. “I love it when the performance begins to gel and we are doing what we are supposed to do,” he says. “It’s a great thrill when audience members begin to shout Yiddish expressions right back to us. With all the great Jewish jazz going on and the R&B material putting the starch on the collar, the performance is much greater than the sum of its parts.”
Generous support from Roe Green and the Green Arts Fund of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland has helped make the JCC’s Arts & Culture season possible.
afine@cjn.org
WHAT: Paul Shapiro’s Ribs & Brisket Revue
WHERE: JCC’s Stonehill Auditorium
WHEN: Sat., Feb. 9
TIME: Pre-Concert HE’BREW beer tasting from 6:30-7:30. Concert begins at 8
CONTACT: 216-593-6258, www.clevejcc.org, www.tickets.com or 800-766-6048
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