Album Notes

Sean Haefeli is a forward-thinking musician, skilled as a pianist, vocalist, and composer. His music represents a convergence of sensibilities and aesthetics. As threads of jazz, soul, and poetic lyricism intersect, the music arrives, distinctively modern and probing. Uncontrived, this convergence accurately reflects Sean’s musical awareness, study, and seeming contradiction.

Though Sean spent his early years training as a classical pianist, he was mainly listening to hip-hop and r&b. And while he entered Depaul University as an opera major, he graduated with a degree in English literature, cultivating an appreciation for a diverse range of poets, and regularly appearing on Chicago's spoken word scene. After graduation, he immersed himself in jazz and improvisation, working in a range of performance mediums and styles, while further widening his listening sphere.

In 2002, Sean released Natural Hunger, an eclectic and personal journey, rendered in an acoustic setting. This promising debut triggered references to the Last Poets, Roberta Flack, Michael Franti, “soft jazz crooners and even old school rhythm and blues masters.”

During 2005, Sean began assembling the pieces to realize his latest vision, the Sean Haefeli Project. At that time, the group consisted of vocals, keys, brass, with electronic beats and textures. As time went on, the group evolved, expanding with the addition of a drummer and bass player, balancing the live elements with subtle electronics. In 2006, the group began recording the new album, Sound Strategy. This music embodies a hybrid character, while at the same time, maintaining aesthetic consistency. The album integrates metric shape-shifting, adept lyricism, deceptive melodies, and harmonic intricacies, counterbalancing these elements with passion, flow and groove.