[1] He was a student at Western Washington University, serving his senior year from 1977 to 1978.
[2] As a Professor of Jazz Piano at the University of Washington in Seattle, Seales has worked with Benny Carter, Howard Roberts, Bobby Hutcherson and Art Pepper.
Seales won the Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award for Best Instrumentalist in 1999.
His biggest musical influences are the trumpeter Floyd Standifer, and saxophonist Don Lanphere, who were also from Seattle.
[4] An excerpt of his song 'Highway Blues' was included by default in Windows XP,[5] along with Beethoven's 9th Symphony and David Byrne's "Like Humans Do".