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Geoff Eales: Red Letter Days

£12.69

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Label: Nimbus - Alliance

Cat No: NI6186

Barcode: 0710357618628

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 2nd April 2012

Artists

Geoff Eales (piano)
Roy Babbington (double bass)
Mark Fletcher (drums)
Jim Mullen (guitar)

Artists

Geoff Eales (piano)
Roy Babbington (double bass)
Mark Fletcher (drums)
Jim Mullen (guitar)

About

"If my debut solo project 'Mountains of Fire' was essentially a vehicle for breathing new life into a series of well-known standards, this CD offers the listener far more in the way of totally original material. To counter-balance this, I have included some old favourites such as 'I Should Care', 'They Didn’t Believe Me' and 'But Beautiful', as well as some lesser-known tunes which deserve more recognition like Victor Feldman’s inspired 'A Face Like Yours' and Billy VerPlanck and Ervin Drake’s groovy 'So Long Sadness'.

Texturally, the album features the piano in three contrasting settings: solo, trio and quartet. While the majority of my engagements tend to fall into the first two categories, it is always a pleasure to be asked to put a quartet together and a particular delight to be able to include the great guitarist Jim Mullen in this format. I am thrilled that Jim has been able to join me on a couple of tracks on this CD. Finally, I would like to thank Roy Babbington and Mark Fletcher for their marvellous playing and creative input, as well as Chris Craker and everyone at Black Box for their continuous support.

I am delighted that Nimbus has reissued ‘Red Letter Days’. The overall feel of this recording is quite different from that of my debut CD (also reissued on Nimbus), ‘Mountains of Fire’. Whereas ‘Mountains’ was essentially a swing album, very much inspired by the vibrant, straight-ahead improvisations of Oscar Peterson and Monty Alexander, the musical and emotional reach of ‘Red Letter Days’ is far deeper. True, there are some swingy tracks – 'Hannah’s Riff' and 'So Long Sadness' for example, Jim Mullen’s bluesy guitar greatly enhancing the performances. However, elsewhere it is the more intimate, conversational style of Bill Evans that provided the stimulus for the majority of the music on the album.

Of course, there is a vast difference between ‘being influenced by’ and ‘slavishly copying’. The aim of any true artist is to transcend one’s influences. It is my hope that I have achieved this on ‘Red Letter Days’."
Geoff Eales

Track Listing:
1. A Face Like Yours (Feldman)
2. I Should Care (Weston, Stordahl, Cahn)
3. Killer Jane (Eales)
4. They Didn’t Believe Me (Kern, Reynolds)
5. Hannah’s Riff (Eales)
6. But Beautiful (Van Heusen)
7. Sometime Ago (Mihanovich)
8. Hotting It Up (Eales)
9. Song For My Mother (Eales)
10. So Long Sadness (Drake, VerPlanck)
11. That Final Look (Eales)