Master of the Game
“The ballads are sumptuously couched in lustrous chords and seductive melodic turns, built around the intertwined voicings of piano and bass. And the faster pieces exhibit a surging freshness… sounds here like a master of an old game who is hunting for a new one”. Guardian (John Fordham)
“There are shades of Esbjorn Svensson and Brad Mehldau in the approach to some of these tracks, while others nod to Bill Evans or Keith Jarrett, but Eales is firmly his own man and what emerges over the course of the album is a highly original player who tends to make his point quietly but forcefull”. Yorkshire Post
“A highly distinctive album in an overcrowded field. It deserves to propel Eales into the piano premier league”. The Jazz Mann *****
“…the overriding sense on Master of the Game is of a famously ‘eclectic’ pianist who’s become a master of his influences and begun to speak in a voice that is distinctively and unmistakably his own”. Jazzwise – 4 Stars ****
“…this is very much Eales’s album, his compositions ranging easily between an affecting threnody (’Lachrymosa’) dedicated to Esbjorrn Svensson to anthemic themes in which Laurence complements his power and lucidity perfectly, his playing by turns rumbustious, delicate, playful and grave, as demanded by the various moods of his pieces. Recommended”. Vortex Jazz Review
1. Geoff Eales Podcast 1 – 1/2
Geoff talks about his new album and playing with Chris Laurence and Martin France.
PLAY – Listen Now
2. Geoff Eales Podcast 2 – 2/2
Geoff talks through a step by step guide to writing the opening track Iolo’s Dance.
PLAY – Listen Now
All music by Geoff Eales
Master of the Game is a rare kind of album these days. Pianist Geoff Eales’ new record will delight and inspire in equal measure fans of Esbjörn Svensson or Brad Mehldau or those who check for Bill Evans or even Bud Powell. Old virtues and values filtered through a modern sensibility? It doesn’t matter how you put it. What matters is the music and these eight tracks played with passion by Eales and his trio of Chris Laurence and Martin France have a lot to tell you.
Some do their best work young, taking their first tentative adult steps. Many of them crash and burn or begin a long slow decline, as they fail to measure up to initial promise. Better somehow to leave it to maturity, when you know what experience means and has taught you.
Geoff Eales has learnt a lot and he’s waited to say it. And he has one other thing that many young pretenders don’t – authority. It comes from knowing what counts in life. Eales doesn’t just play jazz; he tells stories for your own imaginings. Sometimes hard-bitten, at times abstract and even surreal, at others quiet and rich in sentiment – these are tales for this or for any time.
Iolo’s Dance – perhaps a journey into the past, to an ancient pagan world of sacrificial rites, magic and mystery. Song for my Mother – an awareness that sadness is not always an unhappy emotion. Awakening – maybe a Kafkaesque dystopian parable and The Saddest Journey – an awkward and tearful homecoming? Best of all, there’s the Jarrett-like title track, Magister Ludi – haunting, tragic, truly music for a Prospero or a Doktor Faustus.
Master of the Game will surprise you. More than that, it will remind you of the magic that is Jazz.
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