NEW YORK 2006

GDAY GROOVERS. Hope you are all doing well wherever you may be in your lives.

As you may have guessed my big news is that my wife and I have moved back to New York. We arrived in November 2005. It was stressful leaving Australia. Packing up the house and trying to say goodbye was difficult. There never seems to be enough time. I had the feeling that we would be gone for a while so it was pretty emotional for me. I will miss my family and friends very much . I will also miss the beach and especially "Allpress" coffee. Allpress is a cafe and bean roaster near our apartment in Eastlakes which has outrageous coffee. Unfortunately the situation in New York is pretty drastic when it comes to coffee . The best I can do is put some ILLY stuff into Jochen's machine which is pretty good. I do buy a coffee here sometimes at Cafe "Regular" in 11th st ( near 5th ave) in Park Slope. They do their best , but it is nowhere near plenty of places in Sydney.  My mum bought me a cheap Delonghi machine for Christmas which is O.K.

I took my wife to see Wayne Krantz play the day after we arrived. I was SHOCKED at how good the music made me feel. My wife loves music, and had never seen a band play together in New York. She got really excited and looked at me and said " Sean how can you go back to Australia and play music again ? " . I think that is going a bit far, I love all the cats down there, but it is great that she is so supportive of my desire to pursue my music. She seems happy here. The weather reminds her of her home in Beijing. She is lucky that NY has lost all of its scary vibe. These days , most of Manhattan feels positivly Bourgeoir to me.

We have been really lucky here so far. We have a great place thanks to a pianist I met in Sydney , Uli Geissendoerfer. He is a great musician and a top bloke to have as a neighbour. The building is full of musicians and creative people. Upstairs is local Engineer Peter Karl who I have recorded with before. James Muller did a session at his studio recently with Bill Stewart and Matt Penman and recorded a couple of my tunes. Small world.

We have a nice big studio apartment with really high ceilings, and a big loft bed. I have filled it with all the important stuff. Piano, drums , keyboards etc. There is a great club BARBEZ , just down the road on 9th st ( We live 6th ave and 16th st) . I saw Tony Malaby play there recently with Dave Theak . Tom Rainey sounded great on the drums. It seems that everyone lives in Park Slope these days. I keep bumping into musicians I know walking on the street which is nice.

I have picked up a few students and gigs already which is great. I  played recently  with Luca Benedetti at the 55bar with Jochen Rueckert on drums and Aussie Matt Clohesy on the bass. I really had a great night. Clohesy is really playing great at the moment. I have also been playing some Brazlian music with an all Brazilian band ( first time for me with all brazilian musos) . They can't seem to play the 8th notes correctly. I have been meaning to bring in some old Midnight Oil Cd's in to straighten the drummer out.

I had a lesson/hang with George Colligan , which was interesting and very helpful. George and many musicians that I have met are a little down on the scene here . It is getting harder to make a living playing creative music I guess. I was surprised to find that not much has changed since I have left. There are the same  little "crews" of musos playing at the few clubs here that have jazz. Same bands play at the Zinc Bar. 55 bar still  has Mike Stern, Adam Rogers, Chris Potter , Dave Binney, Wayne Krantz etc .... Smoke still has Eric Alexander , Joe Farnsworth ... Smalls and Fat Cat have Avishai Cohen, Ari Hoenig, Sam Yahel ....

That being said , the music here is still as inspiring  for me as it ever was. The chance to play with Jochen etc again has really inspired me. I feel that my music has already improved in a short space of time. I always say that one month in NY is worth a year anywhere else in terms of development.

It really is great to be back in the musical capital of the world ! Hi to all my friends back in Sydney. Hopefully I will get back for a visit soon.

TAKE CARE AND HAPPY NEW YEAR