re: email from tom ohalloran about "eenan"

Tom O'Halloran ( esteemed youngish Australian jazz pianist worth checking out!!! ) March 14 at 6:06am
Hey Sean - I'm doing a workshop on jazz composition at the Con in WA and wondered if there was any chance I could utilise Eenan? Would you be into sending me a lead sheet at all? Totally cool if not... and I'll tell them to go buy the album instead! haha. Actually I'll tell em to get it anyway!!!

Just a thought.. no biggie.

Hope you're well man - I'm such a fan too bro!
take care,
cheers
Tom
Reply:

hi tom ,
Nice to hear from you . Thanks for the kind words . I am enjoying your music on myspace as a I type .

http://www.myspace.com/tommyomusic

I posted some files for you up here :

www.seanwayland.com/eenan.zip

A few things influenced the composition of that tune . I have included the computer demo ( and a bunch i wrote at the time which didnt get released/recorded ) . I was in japan playing with James Muller and his sister on a boat at the time for a couple of months . "eenan" is japanese for good . It is part of my self-congratulatory period of song titles ( many others can be found on my CDs ) . You need confidence in this business.

Shortly before I left for japan Wayne Krantz called me for a gig at the knitting factory which sadly I couldn't make as I was in Sydney . Muller had some of his LTBL scores which I decided to check out in case he rang again . I realised then how much he had written out what was in his head ( I had thought a lot more of it was just improvised ) . I was also influenced by Holdsworth's non-brewed condiment head and the idea of writing out solos for heads which might later infuse your own playing . I realised that Charlie Parker was so good at playing a rhythm changes and a blues because he had already memorised 100's of his own heads on those forms . The repetitive bass figure was somewhat influenced by scofield's tune " we are not alone " from bump which is an early example of that type of bass playing in jazz. Maybe it was Jesse Murphy's idea not Scofield's ... I was also knocked out by the intro melody to "west of hollywood" by Steely Dan . The diatonic melodic pattern in "hollywood" influenced the melody of "eenan" and also "sal" ( another tune of mine written in that period ) . The chord changes and rhythm arrangement of "eenan" where written first and the melody was added later by improvising over the changes at a very slow tempo into the qy70 sequencer that I used at the time . These days I have cubase . As you can see by my influences I am really a jazz fusion musician trying to utilize acoustic instruments also . Say no to the "no-jazz" movement ( jazz with no solos or repetition instead ) . I prefer "acoustic fusion" .

Take care and have fun in perf . Any questions please email me seanwayland@gmail.com

best Sean Wayland