Jordan Shapiro - guitar/vocals

Jordan Shapiro moved to New York City in the summer of 1999 after graduating from the University of Michigan School of Music, where he studied jazz and improvisation. It was during his years in Ann Arbor that he discovered the sounds of progressive bluegrass and modern acoustic music. Upon arrival in New York, he started performing with many different bands, playing bluegrass, jazz-funk, 80's sounding pop-rock, instrumental electric jazz-rock, prog-rock, rock-metal-dub-hop and avant-improv music.
Starting in early 2000, Jordan started touring as keyboard player for Project/Object, a Frank Zappa tribute band, featuing ex-Zappa vocalists Ike Willis and Napoleon Murphy Brock. During his three years of touring, he played well over 100 different Zappa songs to Zappa freaks in every corner of the country and also one special performance in Bad Doberon, Germany. At a Project/Object show, in addition to playing many fast notes on the keys, Jordan could be seen triggering audio samples of animal noises, performing "The Black Page #2" on the mandolin, playing the 'butt-cluster' on the Fender Rhodes, conducting group improvisations with hand gestures, or singing cowboy songs about George W. Bush.
During 2000, and 2001, Jordan spent much of his time writing and producing "Fortune Cookie Dreams", a 'media melt rock odyssey', which ran off-Broadway in August 2001 at the Blue Heron Arts Center. In this multi-media spectacle, a scene called "Astrograss" had bluegrass-playing aliens serenading passengers aboard a spaceship en route to Parking Lot Land while playing the song "Astrograss". (visit the video page to view the actual scene)
In early 2003, Jordan began to put together the first official Astrograss music ensemble and by the end of the summer, the right players were found and Astrograss was ready to cause trouble and get in people's way.
Jordan currently resides in the beautiful neighborhood of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, NY and can be seen performing regularly with the South Slope String Band, Eric Roth Soul Review (keyboards/vocals), Astrograss (acoustic guitar/vocals), AudraRox (electric guitar/vocals), Darrin James Band (Hammond Organ/vocals) and Cold River (guitars/vocals).