"When my band plays live, some people jump up and dance, others just groove and listen. I like that - connecting and communicating."
Today, bassist Harvie S is experiencing a joy precious few jazz musicians have felt with any regularity in recent [+]"When my band plays live, some people jump up and dance, others just groove and listen. I like that - connecting and communicating."
Today, bassist Harvie S is experiencing a joy precious few jazz musicians have felt with any regularity in recent decades. The music he and his group make satisfies fans on several levels. He's found a formula for connecting with club patrons that hasn't been a prominent part of the jazz scene since the 1940s. When the dance-oriented style of jazz that engaged fans first and foremost on a visceral level dramatically evolved to an esoteric listening experience that left many cold, the music lost much of its core audience. Thanks to his embrace of Afro-Cuban rhythms and other Latin American-rooted styles, Harvie S proves night after night that it is possible to create artistic and intellectually satisfying music that appeals to both the head and the feet. Not to mention hips, fingers and toes. And those little muscles that can turn a frown into a broad, beaming smile.
A musician who has spent most of their career outside the close-knit community of Latin musicians does not tread without some trepidation into these exotic waters. Extensive experience in mainstream jazz carries little weight when one enters the labyrinth of tropical Latin music, with its wealth of rhythmically intricate styles. Missteps are easy to make. Particularly for bassists, upon whom much of the burden is placed for interpreting the complex rhythms that give the music its unique character and driving pulse. Making a transition from jazz to Latin is, as they say, no walk in the park.
"I had to learn a new set of rules musically," Harvie readily admits. The eclectic and electrifying performances on Texas Rumba, his new Latin jazz-style recording, proves the rules were well learned. "Now," he adds, "I bend them frequently!"
In the beginning, however, he had to master the bass rudiments of various types of Latin music, from salsa, the urbanized Afro-Cuban dance style, to more musically progressive varieties of Latin jazz. "I started listening and learning, gigging and learning," he recalls. "I played gigs anywhere I could -- on club dates, salsa dances and with Latin jazz bands." Fortunately, his on-the-job experience was gained under the watch
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