Songwriter Impresses Jazz World with His Recent Album Release "Girl in Blue"

As a teenager back in the late '60s, Les Veale had his transistor radio glued to his ear, soaking up the pop, soul and blues sounds of the time. He was learning to play drums and dreamed of appearing on TV shows such as Top of the Pops. Through his interest in drums, he was also drawn to the jazz world, by way of drummers such as Buddy Rich but made a modest living, over the next thirty years or so, playing in local pop and rock bands. Les also spent some time at music college to broaden his musical knowledge. There he took up piano and guitar and started writing pop and country songs in the late '70s and early '80s and felt he had a talent for writing catchy tunes.

However, Les was diverted by other opportunities at the time and shelved his songwriting career until very recently, when he met session singer Tiu de Haan. Tius vocal style and love of popular jazz inspired Les to write one or two jazz style songs. Since then, things have snowballed and forty years on, from the heady days of the summer of love, all those influences have started to emerge in Less songwriting and are beginning to be noticed in the jazz world. As Neal Richardson, MD of Splash Point Music and top UK jazz publisher, says, Les Veale is a great songwriter, with a natural feel for jazz, writing beautiful songs which sound like they're already jazz/ blues classics but with a modern twist.

Les has now set up his own publishing company and record label LVM and released his first jazz album Girl in Blue, featuring Tiu as vocalist, and is currently recording a second album of original jazz songs. Les has also brought together a group of accomplished session players to record and perform live, under the name of The Session 8 Band.

Three songs from Girl in Blue have already been signed to Splash Point Music, bringing ever closer the possibility of one of Less songs being recorded by an internationally renowned jazz vocalist. Les says, Its great that my songwriting is being appreciated at this level and exciting to feel part of the jazz world. Yes its taken me forty years to start making a name for myself but I don't like to rush things!