Paul Shapiro

The saxophonist Paul Shapiro wrote the music for a silent movie which had been shot more than 80 years ago in the same New York neighborhood he is living in today, as Delfin Vigil reports ( San Francisco Chronicle ). The music is no improvisation. He and the musicians in his sextet know at every moment what's happening in the movie. He referenced musical memories to his own youth and the songs heard in the synagogue. It all does not sound like Klezmer, even though it definitively aims at a sound prior to electric guitars and synthesizers. Vigil asks whether viewers should pay more attention to the movie or to the music. "Just relax and drink it all in", is Shapiro's reply.