- NEWS -

Hi everyone and thanks for dropping by.

Well the summer's (what summer?!) finally over with all of us praying for a little bit of sunshine in the Autumn - but so far it's looking far from good. The weather report might be dodgy but there's some excellent news on the other fronts.

Had a fab time at the Marlborough Jazz Festival in July with Roy and Mark cooking up a storm in line with the weather. This followed a couple of gigs in beautiful Provence where the weather was kinder, the food exquisite and the wine over-flowing. It's true that every cloud has a silver lining. The weekend's musical entertainment was organized by the lovely Lady Solti (last time I saw her was 33 years ago when we were both cruising the Med on the good ship Daphne - oh the memories!). It was anything and everything - Bach, Beatles, Bacharach and a spot of jazz - of course! I was joined by vocalists Jacqueline Barron and Michael Dore and jazz trumpeter Mark Armstrong.

The highlight of the summer was the Brecon Jazz Festival in August where I did a brace of solo piano concerts. The first was more experimental featuring quite a few original improvisations but with some swingy standards thrown in for good measure. In the second I paid tribute to my first great piano hero - Oscar Peterson. It was fantastic that mum and dad were able to attend this concert. My career in jazz started as a result of my father teaching me the 12-bar blues when I was still in short trousers. It seemed so appropriate to call him up to the stage at the end and to launch into an extended 12-bar duet. So dad finally makes his debut at Brecon at the tender age of 82!

I'm delighted that Edition Records, the Cardiff based company ran by pianist composer Dave Stapleton and photographer Tim Dickeson, have put together a project involving myself and two wonderful contemporary musicians - bassist Chris Laurence and drummer Martin France. Under the name ELF, we go into the studio in October to record "Master of the Game" - an album of Eales originals. Edition plan to release the CD early 2009.

Internationally acclaimed vocalist Salena Jones has just recorded one of my songs - "Hope, Love and Inspiration" co-written with film director Irving Martin. I'm thrilled that the song has been chosen as the title track of the album of the same name."Hope, Love and Inspiration" will be released on JVC before the end of the year. It might not be jazz - but hey it's all music!

For a full list of my forthcoming gigs please click on Engagements.

You may also wish to visit me on www.myspace.com/geoffeales

Hope to see you all very soon

Geoff

(September 2008)