My hat's off to Harvey S . . .
Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 05/22/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
". . . for inventing a new jazz sub-genre: Tex-Mex/Afro-Cuban. This is what you might get if you crossed The Texas Tornados with Ray Vega. Here is a man that has dedicated the last eight years of his life to thoroughly imbibing Latin jazz. Having played with such luminaries as Ray Vega, Chico and Arturo O'Farrell, Ray Barretto, Arturo Sandoval, Bobby Sanabria, Danilo Perez, Paquito D'Rivera, and countless others, this is a musician who has taken his love affair with Afro-Cuban jazz far beyond the dilletante stage into thorough absorbtion of the magic of this music, first with his band Eye Contact, and now with his even more astounding group, the Harvie S Band.Anyone even casually familiar with the NY jazz scene will recognize the name Harvie S (formerly Harvie Swartz), the name change necessitated by what he calls "the CH factor," whereby airline, hotel, and other service personnel constantly inserted the letters "ch" into his last name, Swartz, wreaking all kinds of havoc and forcing him to simplify. One hopes the change has produced satisfactory results.Here Harvie S, a jazz bassist of the first order, has assembled a crew entirely sympathetic to his profound Latin/jazz esthetic and produced an absolutely first-class disc moving the music into new and unexplored territory. First of all, for an outsider such as Harvie S to completely absorb the intricacies of Latin jazz and nail them in his two Eye Contact discs is one thing. To morph them into an entirely new and magical setting is something else. Yet that is exactly what he has done with Texas Rhumba.The amazing thing is that although this music has never before been attempted, let alone imagined, it nevertheless sounds inevitable. This is nothing short of genius.This remarkable disc underscores the idea that if you stick with something long enough, it's entirely possible that you will come up with a new thing.And that's just what Harvie S has done.Thoroughly enjoyable, and not to be missed by fans of Latin jazz."
Track Listings (11) - Disc #1