Born on this day ...

[Ruby]

Max Middleton was born on this day in 1946, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England. He is a composer and classically trained keyboardist with somewhat jazzy leanings and a tour of duty with some well respected names beginning with Jeff Beck. He was on Blow by Blow and several later releases. He also went on to tour and record with Nazareth, Chris Rea, Mick Taylor and John Martyn as well as a few other names with whom I'm not familiar. He's released three solo albums - I'm currently listening to the most recent (2013), his Two Cranes which Discogs says is jazz/blues or cool jazz. Not at all unpleasant, I must say. So far ... as one might imagine from the title, a slight eastern/Asian flavour and a bit new agey, actually. 

Mr Middleton has also been a sought after session musician in his long and varied career, including contributing to the soundtrack of the movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He is credited with writing (and playing on) "The Loner" which appeared first on Cozy Powell's Over the Top, and then on Gary Moore's Wild Frontier - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWhAf4I5gyI.

I've chosen two Chris Rea tracks - one from Auberge, "Set Me Free" (on which he plays grand piano) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge-l9CxCN-A, and the glorious "Nothing to Fear" (synths) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p60exx7JR4.

And I especially liked "Bamboo Forest" from the aforementioned Two Cranes ... (one or two tracks got a smidge noodley for me, tbh, although not to the point of not wanting to finish the album, and there are some interesting parts that compensate - sounds most assured and accomplished, on the whole) ...