Sheila Jordan Part Two
– Harvie S On Tap
Get into the music, the upright bass, the collaborative partners for Harvie S.It’s On Tap, a show all about great jazz music.
Welcome back to “On Tap with Harvie S”! In this second installment of our special series, I’m continuing my conversation with the wonderful guitarist Joe Carter as we explore the history and artistry of Sheila Jordan. While our last episode focused on discovering her voice, this time we are digging into the origins of our specific musical partnership.
We discuss how we stumbled upon a format that became a defining part of my career: the bass and voice duo.
As Joe points out in this episode, a strict bass and voice duo was a fairly radical concept in the 1970s. While you might hear a bassist and vocalist take a few measures alone during a larger set, the idea of carrying an entire concert without a chordal instrument like a piano or guitar was almost unheard of. Joe notes that while he was used to guitar duos, the idea of stripping a performance down to just the low end and the vocal line was something that immediately caught his attention back then.
The roots of this collaboration actually began while we were touring the world with the Steve Kuhn Quartet. It was a fantastic group featuring Steve, Bob Moses on drums, myself, and Sheila—who really functioned more like a horn player than a traditional singer. In those days, we hauled everything with us, so I always had my bass in my hotel room. Since there were rarely pianos in the rooms, Sheila would often come by just to jam and keep our chops up. We played constantly, but I treated it as casual practice.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but Sheila had ulterior motives for those hotel sessions. One day she told me she had booked a concert for us in Pennsylvania. When I asked who was playing piano or drums, she casually replied, “Nobody.” I was shocked and actually refused at first, thinking there was no way we could pull off a full show alone. We argued about it, but Sheila—persuasive as always—eventually won.
However, I had one strict condition: if we were going to do this, we weren’t going to hide behind music stands. I insisted that we memorize the music completely. For two months, Sheila walked to my apartment three times a week. We rehearsed for hours and shared dinner with my wife, perfecting the material until it was second nature. I was incredibly nervous, honestly believing this would be a “one-and-done” experiment so I could get back to playing with a full band.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The first half of that concert went well, but by the end of the second half, we had received five standing ovations. I remember standing there thinking, “Maybe we really have something here.” That night proved that the risk was worth taking, and it launched a duo format that we’ve enjoyed for decades. Be sure to tune in to hear the full story and a special performance that captures the joy and spontaneity of that partnership.