Geoffrey Leigh Tozer was born 5/27/51 to a music teacher mother who taught him clarinet, piano and how to sing and a freelance writer father who introduced him to big band jazz and Dave Brubeck. He grew up in Tappan, New York, 20 miles North of Manhattan on the West bank of The Hudson River.
   As a child his summers were spent picking out jazz tunes on the family Baldwin piano. He remembers fondly one particular day when he cracked the code of Duke Ellington's "The Mooch". The idiosyncratic descending chromatic line fascinated him and proved to be an introduction to a lifetime of seeking out and creating unique harmonies and melodies.
   His first band was a six piece horn section called The Commotions and, as usual, he was the leader, playing tenor sax and writing all the charts. Saxophone ultimately gave way to piano and singing full time but the lessons he learned about voice leading proved to be invaluable in subsequent arrangements.
   Later in college he continued to pursue the life of a professional musician even taking a job singing at a piano lounge in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico while school was in session. During an eight week run there he missed all his classes for one semester and got back just in time to take final exams toward earning an MBA at Columbia University in New York City.
   After graduating in 1975 with a degree in corporate finance he went to work on Wall Street as a bond and option trader and later started his own investment banking firm, Gilford Securities. But the lure of music would not quit and soon he was back in clubs singing for his supper at any joint in the Big Apple that had a piano. In those days there were lots of such rooms and each one was a real life course in performing and reaching an audience. In 1983 he left the street for good to focus full time on creating his own music style. The seeds of swank were just starting to take hold.
   Then it was off to California to get into the movies. Almost immediately he landed a job scoring a film although this would never prove to take the place of his driving passion. Sure enough, after half a dozen pictures he went back to what he was beginning to think of as his roots; swank music.