Shepherd’s music also contain American jazz elements, including as bebop linesin his improvisations and his approach to harmonic progressions reminiscent of Keith Jarrett’s.His experiments with irregular meter connect with West African music practices. Theseattributes preclude a simple reading of the artists’ work ‘South African’ in a singular sense,and rather reminds us that the notion of a ‘South African’ jazz is in a continuing dialogue othermusic practices – whether this is with American jazz (which has historically powerfullyinformed South African jazz and continues to do so) or musics from other places or genres

His experiments with irregular meter connect with West African music practices.