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By JOHN KATSILOMETES LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOUNAL Originally published July 13, 2018 - 7:51 pm  David Perrico and Paul Shaffer are shown during a Shaf-Shifters performance at Cleopatra's Barge at Caesars Palace in December 2017. (photo courtesy of Robert Ardnt) Asking David Perrico for the highlight of performing with Paul Shaffer is something of an unfair question. “The highlight? The whole gig is a highlight,” says Perrico, the trumpet virtuoso and acclaimed bandleader. “The experience with Paul is the highlight.” Shaffer and the band Perrico built for Vegas, the Shaf-Shifters, are coming back to Cleopatra’s Barge at Caesars Palace. The engagement’s first shows are Sept. 6-8, followed by Oct. 11-13, Nov. 29-Dec. 1 (tickets start at $49 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday). The Shaf-Shifters most recently performed nine dates at the Barge in late December and early January. Shaffer clearly delighted in playing the famed, moated entertainment enclave, donning a blue suit splashed with gold and green glitter and announcing he was performing “on the corner of Sin and City!” Shaffer rolled out some old video clips (including reviving his role as Artie Fufkin on “This is Spinal Tap”) and paid tribute to James Brown with a staggering “Please Please Please.” Shaffer was at home onstage — and his keyboard solos were something to behold — but he needed a hand in creating the right collection of musicians for this exclusively Vegas show. Perrico, who once toured with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, was a natural fit; his Pop Strings ensemble plays that very room at 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. “Paul is the consummate leader, he makes changes on the fly and you have to follow and adapt,” Perrico says. “He’s demanding, but not in a bad way. You just need to deliver.” Perrico has signed up most of the Shaf-Shifters from last winter’s band: Vocalist Noybel Gorgoy, guitarist Jim Buck, bassist Keith Nelson, Andrew “The Fury” Friedlander on sax, Neil Maxa on trombone and Pepe Jimenez on drums. All are highly regarded, veteran Las Vegas artists... “Paul made sure to call out and showcase the musicians,” Perrico says. “He expects excellence, and he rewards it, too.”
Shaffer had envisioned some drop-in performers, in the spirit of the Vegas of yesteryear, and that did happen. Bill Medley and Bucky Heard of the Righteous Brothers, Martin Short, bassist Will Lee (who played with Shaffer for three decades on David Letterman’s World’s Most Dangerous Band), Sonny Charles of the Checkmates and Martha Walsh (of The Weather Girls, who sang “It’s Raining Men”) were among those jammed with the Shaf-Shifters. Perrico has again sold out Myron’s Cabaret Jazz on Saturday night for his latest Pop Strings show at The Smith Center, with Las Vegas Tenors, Lily Arce, Mark Boals of “Raiding the Rock Vault,” and Gorgoy as guest stars. Pop Strings is taking this weekend off at the Barge, returning July 20-21. Perrico chuckles as he talks of working as Shaffer’s bandleader. “He introduces me as his music director, and I shake my head,” Perrico says. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s the music director of everyone.” |
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