The Easy Club reel

I know another tune by this title is in the database at thesession.org, but this is a different tune. It’s usually used as the last tune in the last set of the night at a session I go to. Some rhythmic variations are done in the B-part,
f2>a2 dfaf | e2>a2 ceae, etc
giving it a fun tilt. All in all - I think it’s a pretty cheap tune, but it has enough magic in it to keep things fun.

Isn’t this The Easy Club reel? Composed by the aptly named Big Jim Sutherland who once demonstrated for me why he played the cittern, not the banjo. It was the loudest banjo playing I have ever heard. I won’t post the name officially in case I am wrong.

Yep, I too know it as the Easy Club Reel, from the playing of Sean Smyth.

Oh well, that’s what I get for asking a guitar player for the name of a tune. I’ll send a note to Jeremy to have the title changed.

Brad, you can change the title yourself. If you submit a tune, you can always edit the details of that tune: title, key signature, etc.

Just click on “edit these details”.

It is indeed jim sutherland: a cracking tune writer and seminal inventor of wierd things. Like gaffer taping drum brushes to his bodhran stick.

I know this tune as the first tune on an album just called The Easy Club.It was my first taste of hearing jazz/swing chords played underneath celtic music. This is how I transcribed it, a few variations…
|:AEAc BEBd|cAce dcde|faa e2cce|ceec dcBc|AEAc BEBd|cABc defg|agae faec|
1dcBc A2cB:|2dcBc Aaga||:f3 d2 aga|e3 c2 aga|f3 d2 aga|ceec dcBc|ABcABcd
B|cdec defg|agae faec|1dBGB A aga:|2dBGB A4||

This is one of Big Jim Sullivan’s tunes.This is how it appears on The Easy Club’s first album.
|:AEAc BEGB|ccAc eAce|faag> aaea|caec dcBc|AEAc BEGB|ccAc eAca|faga efec|1dBGB A3 B:|2dBGB A2 ce|:faad> aaga|eaac> aaga|faad> aaga|ceec dBGB|AEcA Bc (3ddd|cAec defg|agae faec|dBGB A4:
By the way,it’s credited as trad on Sean Smythes album.David Meredith

This should played with dotted rhythms and very syncopated. Does anyone know a decent guitar part?

Some lovely playing of The Easy Club here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOQ3851-WdA

play video

http://youtu.be/96w5ot1I_8U

play video

This is taken from the playing of it by The Easy Club themselves on their first album.

The transcriptions above are very close to how the tune was written. I have put in the version as actually written and played by Jim. He wrote the tune out for me many years ago when I did some gigs with the band. Although it sounds like there is a pause in the music in the second part, there actually isn’t. You just hold the ‘d’ and ‘c’ in the 1st and 2nd part slightly longer and put in the 2 ‘a’ notes just afterwards. This gives the tune the jazzy feel that was so characteristic of the ‘Easy Club’ sound. Just pausing the tune is much less elegant and less in keeping with the effect they wanted to produce

Thanks Niall. Wasn’t 100% sure how to create that effect in the written transcription.

I’ve had another listen to the Easy CLub first album and tried to write the tune out. It depends a bit on which play through you listen too, and whether you focus on the cittern or the fiddle as there are differences on all of them. This verison is the nearest to a compromise between them all that I could find.

We play a 3-part version that’s got both the B section from the first setting (which you’ll hear Jim Sullivan playing in the video above), and then the syncopated section.

Sutherland, not Sullivan! No need to give him an Irish name just because it’s an ITM site!

Actually, quite a few people make that mistake.

There were some other great musicians in The Easy Club too. John MartYn on fiddle, Jack Emblow on guitar, and Rod Stewart on guitar and vocals.
🙂

^ haha 🙂

Hee-hee!

Ho ho!

I put a few of my variations in this tune and set it in G major.

For some fun with this piece check out Maeve Gilchrist and Jordan Tice. Lots of energy and improv as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8NchlOJXvc

play video

Weird fact. I was told many years ago by John Martin, the fiddler with the Easy Club, that the well known songwriter John Martyn had to spell his name with the ‘y’ to distinguish him from John Martin.

Slow version on ‘Ocean View’ by Shanachie (named Sean Smyth’s)