Eddie Harris – Sham Time (1968) (recorded March 20, 1967)
Written by Harris for his breakthrough LP The Electrifying Eddie Harris, this red hot sax jam featured legends King Curtis, David "Fathead" Newman and Ray Barretto.
Watch full video on Substack or Twitter.
Eddie Harris was a jazz innovator who designed his own instruments and memorably recorded “Compared To What” with Les McCann and his solo hit “Listen Here.”
On March 20, 1967, Harris was in New York City recording his breakthrough soul jazz LP The Electrifying Eddie Harris.
When released the following year in 1968, the LP hit #2 on the R&B album charts. Its single “Listen Here” was a #11 R&B hit, crossed over to #45 on the Billboard Hot 100, and became one of Harris’ signature songs.
The album’s masterpiece was arguably the red hot workout “Sham Time,” which opened Side Two. Its special guests were the legendary saxophonists King Curtis (playing tenor) and David "Fathead" Newman on baritone sax. There was also another baritone sax player, Haywood Henry from Alabama. He famously played on over 1,000 rock’n’roll records in the 50s and 60s, often anonymously.
Harris himself played electric tenor sax, equipped with a Varitone pickup and effects unit, which allowed it to be amplified without microphones and added various electronic effects. The Varitone was first sold in 1967 by the Selmer Instrument Company of Elkhart, Indiana, and this LP marked one of the first studio recordings it was used on.
The overall result was four times more funky saxes on this cut than any normal track had a right to feature, and a jam for the ages. If “Sham Time” has never been certified by medical professionals as impossible to sit still to, it should be.
“Sham Time” also featured Melvin Jackson on bass, Ray Barretto on percussion, and a pair of New Orleans trumpeters, Melvin Lastie and Joe Newman, who was not related to David “Fathead” Newman, although “Fathead” did have Joe play on his classic Bigger & Better LP released the following year in 1968.
More info: “Eddie Harris and Me…,” Vinyl-Magic.com, June 27, 2021
#soul #jazz #funk #KingCurtis #DavidFatheadNewman #EddieHarris