Steve Shapiro - Plan to Be Spontaneous (2022)

Vibraphonist Steve Shapiro’s progressive electric mallet album Plan To Be Spontaneous, out on 9/16/2022. Solidtone Recordings is pleased to announce the September 16th release of Plan To Be Spontaneous by veteran NYC vibraphone and mallet keyboardist Steve Shapiro. Recorded during lockdown, this studio album features collaborations with friends from Nashville and New Orleans, including saxophonist Jeff Coffin, and guitarists Pat Bergeson & Shane Theriot. Rounding it out is an A-list crew of in-demand NYC musicians: Oz Noy, Mark Egan, Carter McLean, Joel Rosenblatt, and Snarky Puppy’s Bob Lanzetti. The opening track also adds very special guest Lucy Woodward on vocals. The album contains seven brand- new original compositions featuring Steve on vibes, marimba, and electronic mallet controller. From the first notes of the opening track “Extremely Moderate,” it becomes obvious that this is no traditional vibraphone album. Lucy Woodward delivers a powerful vocal performance that sets up extended improvisations from Steve on vibes and Jeff Coffin on sax. We can hear Shapiro’s personal vibraphone voice fully shine throughout the rest of the project, along with his unmistakable sound-design on mallet synthesizers. It’s a unique approach, and hard to think of many other albums that explore this type of contemporary setting for mallet percussion outside of composers like Frank Zappa. The stellar production shows why Steve has been highly-regarded for many years as producer, synthesist, and scoring composer for many major TV and film projects, beyond his performance skills on mallets. “Steve Shapiro is a legitimate triple-threat musician”