Jan Shapiro - Back To Basics (2006)

Jan began her music studies at the Saint Louis Institute of Music and continued by earning her Bachelor’s degree, graduating Cum Laude from Howard University, Washington D.C. and completing a Masters degree from Cambridge College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Her first major engagement at the Playboy Club in Saint Louis lasted more than six months–until she and her group went on the road, touring extensively. Subsequently she performed at the Camellia Room in the Drake Hotel, Chicago, the Hyatt Hotels in Washington D.C., and Atlanta, The Top of The Tower Club, New York City, Marriott Hotels in Florida, Washington D.C. and St. Louis, the Chase-Park Plaza Hotel, St.Louis, various Sheraton Hotels and Ramada Inns, and numerous hotels, supper clubs, and jazz clubs in Boston and the New England area. Jan was the guest vocalist for the prestigious Boston Globe Jazz Festival in 1987 and in 1990, leading off the Festival in 1990.

As a musician, Jan has developed competence as a vocalist, flautist, electric bass, piano and keyboards as well as percussion. She is versatile in style, singing jazz, soft-rock, pop, blues, and ballads with equal elan. As a songwriter, she has written and collaborated in writing some of the songs she performs. In addition, she composed the score of “Tales of Toyland”, a children’s production of Bob Kramer’s Marionettes of Saint Louis, which toured nationally. As a recording artist, she was the featured guest artist with the “Airmen of Note”–the official Jazz Ensemble of the United States Air Force, on a recording with international distribution. She has performed as a studio vocalist in recording numerous advertising jingles, TV spots and demos’ including recording with Len Dressler of the “Singers Unlimited” for the Broadway musical “Copperfield”.

Jan was a former faculty member of the Voice Department at Fontbonne College, Saint Louis, Missouri and in the Jazz Studies Department at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Illinois. Jan is Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music. She was also Chair of the Voice Department at Berklee from 1997 through May 2010. She has presented vocal clinics around the country including the International Association of Jazz Educators Conferences, and adjudicated high school jazz choirs in the New England area.