Without knowing it, pianist-keyboardist Ray Angry and vocalist Ryan Shaw have traveled parallel paths, professionally and musically. Angry is a member of The Roots, and thus the house band of NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon; he has also recorded with Jeff “Tain” Watts, Marcus Strickland and other jazz heavyweights as part of Revive Music, on several esperanza spalding albums, on sessions for Diane Reeves, Elvis Costello and John Legend, and a handful of soundtracks for comedian Amy Schumer’s film and television work.

Across the same seven-year period as Angry, vocalist Ryan Shaw made a handful of Grammy-nominated solo R&B albums, not to mention his Broadway debut originating the role of Stevie Wonder in Motown: The Musical. He also tackled the not-so-pious part of Judas in a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of Jesus Christ Superstar; self-created his own small combo and touring orchestral shows, and recorded the music of Marvin Gaye, Imagining Marvin (Broadway Records, 2020), as something winding, winnowing and jazzy.

For Angry and Shaw to finally meet is a brand of kismet, as is clear from their first album project together, OFF Broadway (Center Stage). Shaw chuckles at the thought of meeting Angry at one of New York’s music capitals, the Village Underground, during the famous Sunday night open mic, digging the pianist’s vibe and sound. “Everybody was there, singing their faces off for each other,” says Shaw, “and then Ray comes in and murders everyone with his piano and organ. I had been on Broadway for several years straight and I was preparing to do a night of my own at 54 Below in Manhattan last November. When my manager asked me who I wanted to play with … Ray Angry. Hell yeah, Ray Angry.”

Producer and songwriter Scott Jacoby was in the audience that night, having worked with Shaw on recent singles such as “Rising Up,” and immediately came up with the idea of a jazz take on the songs of Broadway, past and present, for this freshly minted duo. “Scott knew that this night needed to be captured on tape,” said Shaw of the four-day, “stream of consciousness” studio performance that produced OFF Broadway. “It was like a blur.”

Calling Jacoby a smart and insightful producer for pushing the duo to new heights, Angry noted that such jazzy expression was aided by everything from both men’s roots in gospel music, to several vintage drum machines used by Sly & the Family Stone during their classic sessions. (“He’s gonna freak out when he hears OFF Broadway” says Angry of Roots drummer Questlove, who recently directed a Sly Stone documentary.)

Songs such as “Surprise” from A Chorus Line, “Waving Through a Window” from Dear Evan Hansen, the swinging “Gethsemane” by Andrew Lloyd Webber, “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim, the poetic musical interludes by the late Jonathan Larson of Rent fame: these are among the notable jazz-not-jazz moments of OFF Broadway. “[The songs] allowed me to create their new harmonic landscape,” Angry comments. “I can hear a melody, then play it 20 or 30 ways,” he adds, to which Shaw replies: “And you did!”

Angry has recorded two self-composed albums as a leader — One from 2018, Ray Angry Three from 2023 — as well as a 2024 recording, Plumb, with Questlove and legendary tenor saxophonist David Murray. His upcoming Black Athena Project like much of his work, merges jazz and classical sounds. Angry operates from a place where “music is music”: “Everything I do is connected to the next,” he says. “I don’t use separate compartments for what I compose or play. And that makes me a happy, creative being.”

Working with an improviser as great as David Murray made Angry happier and more creative still. “That whole record was improvised — and kind of scary because when I got to the studio, the first thing I asked was, ‘Where is the music?’ David had two songs, but the producer Steve Mandell said, ‘Ray, Just play.’ So, that’s what I did. And I fed off what Quest did.”

In its way, OFF Broadway also took shape spontaneously: “Ray even encouraged me to sing from the back of the room during ‘Send in the Clowns’ to add texture,” recalls Shaw. “The whole point of OFF Broadway was to be and act freely and in-the-moment, [and when I hear that track] now, it is so haunting. It’s like a movie where, you know, you want to cry. With Ray there is no judgement — just pulling it all from the ether.” JT