George Duke

Born: January 12, 1946

Died: August 5, 2013

George Duke, who has died at the age of 67, was a Grammy-winning jazz keyboard player, producer and pioneer of acoustic jazz whose sound infused acoustic jazz, electronic jazz, funk, R&B and soul. During his 40-year-plus career, he most famously appeared on a number of Frank Zappa's albums but also played keyboard on Michael Jackson's multi-platinum 1979 album Off the Wall and was a producer for Miles Davis, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Natalie Cole. He also released more than 30 solo albums.

He began his career in the mid-1960s after joining San Francisco's Half Note jazz club's house band, which was fronted by the singer Al Jarreau. His international breakout album was 1969's The Jean-Luc Ponty Experience with The George Duke Trio, which is considered as one of the first fusion jazz recordings, combining jazz with the electric violin of the French virtuoso Ponty.

Duke's albums Faces in Reflection, The Aura Will Prevail and Liberated Fantasies, all released in the 1970s, are considered classics of jazz-funk fusion. During that time, he also collaborated on several albums with Zappa as a member of his Mothers of Invention band, including Chunga's Revenge, The Grand Wazoo and Over-Nite Sensation.

He was born in San Rafael, California, and was first exposed to jazz at the age of four when his mother took him to a performance by Duke Ellington. George Duke said years later that he didn't remember much about the event but his mother always told him he went crazy when he heard Ellington play and demanded a piano. He began piano lessons when he was seven and his earliest influence was the music at the Baptist Church he attended. He said it was in church that he saw for the first time how music could trigger emotions.

He began playing with jazz groups while still at high school and went on to study at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. It was while there that he made his first album, George Duke Quartet, which was released in 1966; he later called it the worst album he had ever made.

He joined the Half Note club and heard Jean-Luc Ponty play for the first time. They began working together and experimenting with different genres and instruments.

He met Zappa for the first time in 1969 and worked with him on a number of albums including 200 Motels, Apostrophe and Chunga's Revenge. For Duke and his collaborators, the 1970s was a period of great musical experimentation with Zappa, Ponty and others.

Duke became a solo artist in 1976, released a series of fusion records and started to find mainstream success with albums such as From Me to You and Reach for It. He then moved into producing and by the 1980s was much in demand by jazz artists and others including Barry Manilow, Smokey Robinson, The Pointer Sisters, Gladys Knight and many others. His production work spanned jazz, R&B and pop music.

He also scored a pop hit in 1981 with Sweet Baby, a collaboration with bassist Stanley Clarke. He earned Grammy awards for his jazz production work for singer Dianne Reeves in 2000 and 2001. He played at the Nelson Mandela tribute concert in London in 1989.

His last album, DreamWeaver, was released last month as a tribute to his wife Corine, who died from cancer last year. He is survived by his two sons.