George Duke obit

George Duke obituary

Jazz-funk keyboard star of the 70s who became a hit-making music producer 

He was not on the list.

George Duke, who has died aged 67, was one of the brightest stars in the 1970s jazz-funk firmament. In a career that lasted four decades, he was a prolific keyboard player, bandleader, solo artist, music producer and musical director for film and television. Duke lent his talents to a wide range of musical assignments, yet he was rarely a backroom boy – his humour, generosity and sheer musicality shone through whatever he did.

Born in San Rafael, near San Francisco, he grew up in California and began studying piano at the age of seven, inspired by Duke Ellington. In his teens, he formed a band with the singer Al Jarreau and made a first (forgettable) solo album. He studied music formally at San Francisco Conservatory and San Francisco State University, but his big break came touring with the French jazz violinist Jean Luc Ponty: at a 1969 club date in LA, the audience included the composer-producer Quincy Jones, the Mothers of Invention bandleader Frank Zappa and the saxophonist Cannonball Adderley – all future employers.

Duke did two stints on the road with Zappa's bands and made a memorable, self-mocking appearance in Zappa's 1971 movie 200 Motels. In 1971, Adderley hired him to replace Joe Zawinul, who had left to start Weather Report, and he stayed with the band for several years.

When Duke made solo albums in the 1970s, his musical voice was fresh and surprisingly commercial – jazz-funk instrumentals with vocal spice. Albums such as I Love The Blues, She Heard My Cry (1975) helped establish Duke as a significant artist in Europe and the US. For Love (I Come Your Friend), a typical Duke composition from The Aura Will Prevail (1974), features translucent falsetto vocals, exhilarating drumming by Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, and sweeping, virtuoso synthesiser solos that demonstrated how expressive and emotional these new-fangled, wire-strewn keyboards could be in the right hands. "I learned how to make them talk; I learned how to get the blues out of them," wrote Duke.

His 1970s recordings have found new champions in recent years: his tracks have been sampled by hip-hop artists including A Tribe Called Quest, MF Doom, Example and Common. The American bassist Thundercat (aka Stephen Bruner) made a memorable version of For Love (I Come Your Friend) for his 2011 album The Golden Age of Apocalypse.

Duke credited Zappa for breaking down his "musical elitism". In turn, his boss's music benefited hugely from Duke's presence, which tempered the metrical complexity of Zappa's compositions with a gospel-drenched richness, as on Be-Bop Tango from the album Roxy & Elsewhere (1974) and Sofa No 1 from One Size Fits All (1975).

The George Duke credit turns up in the small print of countless jazz, soul and R&B records – he played with Michael Jackson, Airto, David Axelrod, Chaka Khan, Flora Purim, Shuggie Otis, Sonny Rollins, Nancy Wilson and hundreds more.

Duke was a member of several jazz-fusion supergroups, including a band with the former Mahavishnu Orchestra drummer Billy Cobham and a power trio with the bassist Stanley Clarke.

The pop success of Duke's album Reach For It (1977) attracted a more funk- and R&B-oriented audience to his gigs, and eventually enabled him to develop a parallel career as a hit-making producer – he made albums with Dee Dee Bridgewater, the duo A Taste of Honey, Jeffrey Osborne, Deniece Williams and many more artists, including Take 6 and his cousin Dianne Reeves.

He even worked with his childhood hero Miles Davis, producing a track on each of Davis's 1980s electro albums, Tutu (1986) and Amandla (1989). He forged successful working partnerships with the singers Rachelle Ferrell and Anita Baker and took part in fundraising ventures (such as Wave For Peace) and TV specials (such as the Soul Train Music Awards).

Duke made nearly 40 albums under his own name, breaking new ground in world jazz by recording Brazilian Love Affair (1979), one of his best-loved albums, in Rio with local musicians. From time to time, he enjoyed freak hits – in Japan with Shine On and in France with Reach Out.

Face the Music (2002) was a great return to form. His last album, DreamWeaver (2013), released in July, included a tribute to his wife, Corine, who died in 2012 – they had been together more than 40 years.

I last saw Duke and his band during a residency at the Jazz Cafe in London in 2004. On stage he was a big, smiling presence, with a nice line in chat and an instinctive showmanship that never got in the way of the music. At the end of an exciting and beautifully judged set, Duke invited members of the audience to come on stage and perform. Several took the challenge, while the band gave empathetic support, playing quietly behind one girl's nervous scatting, blowing up a storm beneath the gutsy piano-playing of a skinny kid in a hoodie. The whole episode, which felt risky at first, demonstrated a special confidence and professionalism on Duke's part – his ability to listen, to improvise, to communicate and to lead a band.

Duke once wrote: "I really think it is possible to make good music and be commercial at the same time. I believe it is the artist's responsibility to take the music to the people. Art for art's sake is nice; but if art doesn't communicate, then its worth is negated, it has not fulfilled its destiny."

Duke is survived by two sons, Rasheed and John.