Australian musician and TV personality Geoff Harvey has died, aged 83.

Harvey was known as the Maestro of Midday, leading the live TV show’s band for more than 21 years while simultaneously the witty foil for host and guests alike.

But his influence on Australian television history reaches far beyond sharp repartee at high noon, touching almost its genesis, then stretching into the 21st Century.

"I'm sure anyone who knew him he was as everybody did, thinks kindly of him tonight, he was, he was a one-off character, he was amazing,” Midday show host Ray Martin told 9News.

Born in the UK in 1935, Harvey would be raised as the bombs of the Blitz fell on London.

Geoff Harvey (right) her with Ray Martin, was known as the Maestro of Midday, leading the live TV show’s band for more than 21 years. (Supplied)

By the time the bombs stopped at age eight, he was playing organ for his local church. By 14, Harvey was organist at Westminster Cathedral.

A year later, he was playing in jazz clubs, where he would stay after leaving school.

The Londoner would be lured to Australia to produce records for EMI in the early 1960's.

He only planned to stay for a year but quickly became absorbed by the new medium of television, which was crying out for variety talent, the then staple of programming.

He would join the Nine Network in 1961, first with Bob Rogers Tonight Show, then quickly assuming the title of musical director for stars such as Dave Allen, John Laws, Barry Crocker and Don Lane. Harvey began growing his signature beard after losing a football bet with Lane in 1965.

"He was just a barrel of laughs, and he treated life as fun and if there's a face of television, it probably isn't Bert or Graham, it, it's Geoff Harvey," Martin said.

But his profile would become a national weekday presence with the eight-year run of the Mike Walsh Show and then the 14-year roll of Midday, both shows one-and-a-half hours of live TV punctuated with three big musical numbers every show.





Kerri Anne Kennerley and Geoff Harvey. (Supplied)

"The last nine years have been the happiest of my life, they really have for all of us, you've made it all very, very easy,” he said in an on-air appearance with Martin.

Harvey would also compose the themes to some of the network's biggest marquee titles, such as A Current Affair, the Today show and The Sullivans. He would regularly give up the festive season at home to steer the baton for Carols by Candlelight.

"Every time you needed someone to rescue a program, Geoff would come in and as I say, he did probably twenty Carols by Candlelight and twenty Logies and he was always there, he was the maestro,” Martin said.

"He probably had more friends in the business than anybody I know, I mean people love Geoff Harvey,” Martin said.

When live variety lost its lustre, Harvey would return to that first love of the keyboard as a teacher, doing the odd gig at his favourite Bowral hotel, as well as going back on the road to tour with stage shows.