Search - Harry Sheppard :: Points of View

Can't Stop Listening

Edward Lewis | Houston, TX | 11/12/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I saw Harry at a jam session one day and he gave me a "pre-release" cassett tape of a session he had just finished for Justice Records. I've always liked Harry's playing, but I was surprised by what I heard. The recording was all fusion but everything I had heard him play in person was either straight ahead or avant-garde. I immediately decided that this was something I had to have when it came out.



That cassett he gave me was "Points of View" and it's simply fantastic. I'm not a huge fan of "fusion" stuff because so much of it is dummied down - you know - lowest common denominator stuff.



A friend of mine says that, to make a fusion CD, you make the recording and then cut all of the best, hippest stuff out of it. He jokingly says that they sometimes have to stop the recording because what he played was just simply TOO GOOD for a fusion CD. That gives you a general idea of what real jazz musicians think about fusion.



But none of that applies to "Points of View". With a lineup of top notch players including Steve Masakowski and Marvin "Smitty" Smith, this is a fusion recording that any real jazz musician would be proud to own. The CD is dripping with all things that are hip in jazz. Great tunes. Great lines. Great music. It's the kind of recording you can't stop listening to. I've listened to it at least a few hundred times myself in the past decade since it was released."

Everybody Luvs Harry

Brian Rosenfeld | NYC | 05/21/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a spectacular collection of Latin songs by a vibes player who has got a spectacular Latin feel for a guy from Roslyn."