Treating Eyes and Ears

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."