When Leonard Avril got his first guitar four years ago,
he practiced like a 16-year-old with rock-star aspirations: nights, weekends,
whenever he was free. Avril, however, was 46, and didn’t intend to become a
serious musician.
"I write a lot of lyrics, poetry, and I [wanted] music to
accompany them," says Avril, an optometrist with Southwest Florida Eye Care,
which has offices in Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Naples. He’s been writing
poetry, which he says comes easily to him, since high school in St. Petersburg.
Avril earned his degree in optometry at the University of
Missouri in 1984, and then practiced in Kansas City for three years before
moving back to Florida. By mid-career, when his only child—daughter Marie—was
away at college, he finally had time to indulge his longtime interest in
learning an instrument.
Avril became a serious musician after all: This April, he
released a jazz/blues album on his own label, The Eyetones. Ironically, it has
no lyrics. "I’m not much of a singer, so [creating a CD] wasn’t going to happen
if I had to sing," he says.
Over 19 days last December, he wrote the eleven songs that
comprise In New
York, named for his daughter, who
will soon move to the city. Avril recorded the album at a Bonita Springs studio,
and is distributing it via iTunes and other online venues, as well as his Web
site, www.mylajazz.com.
"It’s mostly just for fun. If I recoup the cost through sales and other
means, that’s great, but I like [creating music] as a hobby," Avril says. "I
give a lot of my music away to my patients, and unless they’re lying to me,
everybody says they like it."
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