Guitarist, Joel Shapira, is back at it with a quartet he last recorded with almost two decades ago. The new record is called Sleepless Montage and the band sounds really comfortable diving back into a new set of tunes penned by Shapira. I was first drawn to the title track at first cause of the joy of hearing Shapira work his acoustic sound into a jazz setting. It’s a laidback tune with drummer, Dave Schmalenberger and bassist, Tom Lewis delivering a lazy groove that gives Shapira and saxophonist, Pete Whitman ample time to navigate solos. Bassist, Tom Lewis holds it down for the grand majority of the tune but does step out for a brief, tasteful solo before jumping back to the circular, searching melody that Shapira wrote. Bravo to Shapira for churning out new material and bringing along some of the finest players in the Twin Cities to support him. To learn more about the album check out the interview I did with Shapira in advance of his CD release party.
Hot New Local Singles highlights new, local songs. Minnesota has a lot of great jazz, funk, soul, and jazz- adjacent music, and Jazz88 is highlighting what is fresh.
You can check out a live performance of “Sleepless Montage:”
https://www.facebook.com/joel.shapira.9/videos/1498576991533719
More Posts for Show: This Just In
