Joe Beck

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Joe Beck (born July 29, 1945 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † July 22, 2008 in Woodbury , Connecticut ) was an American jazz and fusion guitarist .

Live and act

Beck, who grew up in New Jersey and the San Francisco area, began making music as a teenager. He played in a jazz trio in New York and worked early in his career with musicians as diverse as the bossa nova- influenced saxophonist Paul Winter , the flamenco guitarist Sabicas ( Rock Encounter , 1967) and Miles Davis , with whom he worked the title Circle in the Round (1967) plays guitar and attracts attention through the hypnotism of humming and warbling guitar strings .

Beck played with Duke Ellington , Gil Evans and Stan Getz . A first album under his own name, Nature Boy , was marketed as rock music . Disgusted by the music business, he withdrew completely and worked as a dairy farmer for three years. In the mid-1970s he was the musical director of Esther Phillips' ensemble . During this time his career reached its first climax; his collaboration with saxophonist David Sanborn , the album Beck & Sanborn (1975), developed into a popular fusion hit. Beck then worked as a sought-after studio musician in New York, who was at home with jazz, but was strongly oriented towards rock and funk ; he can be heard on Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years as well as on Frank Sinatra's disco attempts Night and Day and All or Nothing at All from 1977. Producer Creed Taylor brought him to the CTI productions of Joe Farrell , JJ Johnson , Paul Desmond , Hubert Laws and Idris Muhammad . Beck also worked with Buddy Rich , Maynard Ferguson , Woody Herman , Ali Ryerson , Larry Coryell , Gene Ammons , Sérgio Mendes , Antônio Carlos Jobim , Laura Nyro , Houston Person , Roger Kellaway , Richie Havens , Deborah Brown , Gábor Szabó, and Gato Barbieri .

In the 1980s Beck played in bands by Ray Anderson and Lew Soloff, among others . In 1988 he moved back to the country, but was back on the jazz scene four years later. He continued his career with albums like 1991's Relaxin ' (1991), Alto (1997) and (with Jimmy Bruno ) Polarity (2000); he was also heard on James Brown's Funky Side of Town . Beck worked for most of the following decade for a variety of labels (including Whaling City Sound ) with albums such as Just Friends (2002) and Tri07 (2007). In 2007 he undertook his last European tour with John Abercrombie , with which the album Coincidence (2008) was created. Together with singer Laura Theodore, he dedicated himself to the music of Peggy Lee on the album Golden Earrings (2009), which was completed shortly before his death .

Beck died of lung cancer at the age of 62 in a Connecticut hospice . His trio album Get Me was released posthumously in 2014 .

literature

  • Peter Wießmüller: Miles Davis. His life, his music, his records . 2nd edition. Oreos-Verlag, Gauting 1985, ISBN 3-923657-04-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cit. after Wießmüller, p. 163
  2. ^ Obituary New York Times August 30, 2008
  3. ↑ a b c Get Me: Guitarist Joe Beck Leaves a Shining Legacy Huffington Post June 16, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Beck, Joe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 2008
Place of death Woodbury (Connecticut)