An East Village synagogue is furthering its mission with the sounds of jazz. NY1's Stephanie Simon filed the following report.

The East Village has always been a swinging neighborhood with lots of jazz musicians and clubs calling it home. But at the 6th Street Community Synagogue, the music is downright sanctified thanks to rabbi and sax man Greg Wall.

"I'm a full time saxophonist, composer, producer. I've been doing that for over 30 years. I became a rabbi in 2006 and this is my first opportunity to try to shepherd a congregation," Wall said. "I wasn't planning on doing this. I have a nice career playing music but someone called me up and said Greg I have a shul for you.' I said 'Nah I'm a little busy for that.' And they said 'It's in the East Village.' I said 'Maybe I'll check it out.'"

The rabbi plays every Monday night. And he invited longtime friend Paul Shapiro to play on a recent Saturday night. Shapiro takes prayers he learned in synagogue growing up and rearranges them as jazz pieces, including a traditional Bar Mitzvah prayer familiar to nearly all 13-year-olds.

"The melody before the haftorah is chanted and it goes da dee daaa daa daa da da. Right? Well I started playing it on the saxophone and I played it like Da dee da da dadada," Shapiro said.

Both men record on John Zorn's Tsadik label. They say they love the clubs but there's something special about playing at a synagogue.

"This is a community synagogue. We're supposed to serve the community. And it's a community of artists it's a community of art lovers. And the synagogue though it's a place of prayer and scholarship and torah it's also a place of community and one of the ways you build community is by having events that bring people together," Wall said.

Mixing jazz and Judaism isn't just a schtick for those at the 6th Street Community Synagogue. Whether they're on stage or in the audience, everyone seems to agree that the music works.

"Music is, I think, a very spiritual form of communication and jazz in a very special way is a spiritual form of communication and to be able to put liturgical melodies and improvise on them and have this incredibly rich history of improvisation is so natural," said musician Arturo O'Farrill.

For more details on jazz at the 6th Street Synagogue, visit www.EastVillageShul.com or send an email to rabbi@eastvillageshul.com.