george duke

Born 12 January 1946, San Rafael, California, USA.

George Duke studied the piano at school (where he ran a McCann, Les -inspired Latin band) and emerged from the San Francisco Conservatory as a Bachelor of Music in 1967. From 1965-67 he was resident pianist at the Half Note, accompanying musicians such as Gillespie, Dizzy and Dorham, Kenny. This grounding served as a musical education for the rest of his life. He arranged for a vocal group, the Third Wave, and toured Mexico in 1968.

In 1969 he began playing with French violinist Ponty, Jean-Luc, using electric piano to accompany Ponty's plugged-in violin. He played on King Kong, an album of music Zappa, Frank composed for Ponty. He then joined Zappa's group in 1970, an experience that transformed his music. As he put it, previously he had been too 'musically advanced' to play rock 'n' roll piano triplets. Zappa encouraged him to sing and joke and use electronics. Together they wrote 'Uncle Remus' for Apostrophe (1972), a song about black attitudes to oppression. His keyboards contributed to a great edition of the Mothers Of Invention- captured on the outstanding Roxy & Elsewhere (1975) - which combined fluid jazz playing with rock and avant garde sonorities. In 1972 he toured with Adderley, Cannonball (replacing Zawinul, Joe ). Duke had always had a leaning towards soul jazz and after he left Zappa, he went for full-frontal funk. I Love The Blues, She Heard My Cry (1975) combined a retrospective look at black musical forms with warm good humour and freaky musical ideas; a duet with Johnny Guitar Watson was particularly successful. Duke started duos with fusion power-drummer Cobham, Billy, and virtuoso bassist Clarke, Stanley, playing quintessential 70s jazz rock - amplification and much attention to 'chops' being the order of the day.
Duke always had a sense of humour: 'Dukey Stick' (1978) sounded like a Funkadelic record.  The middle of the road beckoned, however, and by Brazilian Love Affair (1979) he was merely providing high-class background music. In 1982 Dream On showed him happily embracing west-coast hip easy listening. However, there has always been an unpredictable edge to Duke. The band he put together for the Wembley Nelson Mandela concert in London backed a stream of soul singers, and his arrangement of 'Backyard Ritual' on Miles Davis 's Tutu (1986) was excellent. He collaborated with Clarke again for the funk-styled 3 and in 1992 he bounced back with the jazz fusion Snapshot, followed by the orchestral suite Enchanted Forest in 1996, and Is Love Enough? in 1997.

(From: http://music.excite.com/artist/biography/615360)

discography

random notes

Birthday: Jan 12, 1946 in San Rafael, CA

     From: Scott Yanow, AMG
Inspired early on by Les McCann, he worked with a trio in San Francisco during the mid-'60s. In 1969 Duke accompanied Jean-Luc Ponty, recording with the violinist. After eight months with Don Ellis' Orchestra, he joined Frank Zappa for much of 1970. Duke spent 1971-72 with Cannonball Adderley and then returned to Zappa for 1973-75. In 1975 he worked with Sonny Rollins, co-led a group with Billy Cobham and then formed a funk band (the Clarke-Duke Project) with Stanley Clarke. By the late '70s he was completely outside of jazz, playing R&B and producing projects for pop artists.  -- Scott Yanow, AMG

     From: Unknown
Released many jazz albums, some of which are:

• "Faces in Reflection" - 1974

  • Ndugu (Leon Chancler) - drums

  • John Heard - bass

  • No FZ related material

• "Feel" - 1974

  • Ndugu (Leon Chancler) - drums

  • John Heard - bass

  • FZ appears as Obdewl X on "Love" and "Old Slipper"

• "The Aura Will Prevail" - 1975

  • cover of "Enchidna's Arf" and "Uncle Remus"

  • Ndugu (Leon Chancler) - drums

  • Alfonso Johnson - bass

  • No Zappa alumnus on this one.

• "I Love the Blues, She Heard My Cry"

  • Tom Fowler - bass

  • Ruth Underwood - marimba, gongs, percussion

  • Bruce Fowler - trombone

  • Johnny 'Guitar' Watson - vocals, guitar

  • Not all the above musicians are featured on all tracks.

• "Liberated Fantasies"

  • Napoleon Murphy Brock - vocals

  • Ruth Underwood - voice of riddle

      From: Unknown
Released collaborations with Stanley Clarke (even doing "Louie Louie") Also reasonably popular as a producer among young black artists. Continues to release albums.

George Duke produced one or two songs for one of the last Miles Davis albums.

George is currently working on his next solo release. Recent projects include production work for Johnny Gill and Anita Baker, music direction for Comic Relief, incidental music for assorted children's television shows, and "The Muir Woods Suite", an album of original orchestral music. (source: Keyboard Magazine, April 1994)

George Duke did production and practically all instruments on the Denise Williams world-wide hit "Let's hear it for the boy" sometime in the mid/late 80s. I've seen an interview where from memory he said that he did most of the instrumentation using memorymoogs and minimoogs.

Both George Duke and Ian Underwood performed on Quincy Jones: "Back on the Block". Ian did synthesizer programming on several songs, and George is featured soloist playing fender Rhodes on two songs ("New Man Woman" and "Brasilian Wedding Song")

     Joseph Evans sez:
George produced and penned the soundtrack to the Steve Martin flic "Leap of Faith."

     Michael Cysouw(m.cysouw@let.kun.nl) sez:
George produced an played on 'Quiet after the Storm' by Dianna Reeves. He is credited as the composer of the number 'smile' on this album. And he produced, arranged and played on the number 'Backyeard Rituals' on the album 'Tutu' by Miles Davis.

     Jan van Kemenade sez:
In my collection there are three albums by George Duke:

• Follow the Rainbow ('79) : with Napoleon Murphy Brock on vocals.

• Dream On ('82)

• Thief in the Night ('85)

all three albums list Herb Cohen as manager and the first two have Kerry McNabb as engineer. George Duke also played with Stanley Clarke (that's what I contributed a long time ago without naming any albums) He can be heard on the albums 'Schooldays' ('76) and 'I Wanna Play for You' ('79). 
George also plays on 1 track of Jean-Luc Ponty's 'Individual Choice' ('83). George played keyboards and produced an album by Jeffrey Osborne 'Don't Stop' ('84)

     From: "depp@smpt.rmcil.edu" (depp@smpt.rmcil.edu)
Mr Duke performed in a festival called Montreux Summitt with notable players such as: Billy Cobham, Bob James, Eric Gale, Alphonse Johnson, Maynard Ferguson to name just a few.  It is overall an awe-inspiring lp.  I have not found it on cd, though.

     From: jhenley@mail.utexas.edu (John Henley)
     Date: 5 Jan 1998 14:51:50 GMT
Shortly before taking off for Xmas vacation (and being away from computers for many days) I was channel-surfing, and stopped briefly on Black Entertainment Television where a tuxedo-clad big band was doing a shuffle before an equally tuxedo-clad audience.  Seems it was a taped broadcast of a big jazz concert recently held in Kansas City, I think it was.  Anyhoo, a few shots into this I recognized the bandleader as none other than our old friend George Duke.  (And let me tell ya something: from the looks of him, George learned his fitness regimen from FZ  - let's just say the man has become rather pear-shaped.)
To my delight, when they came to the end of this shuffle, George gave a hand signal (that's right) and the band finished the piece by ripping into the last 24 or so bars of "Echidna's Arf."  Probably not many people in that audience knew what they were hearing, but it knocked me silly.  And when they were done you could see one of the trumpet players take a deep breath, as if it'd taken all he had to get through those 24 bars.

     From: Martin Higgs (martin@higgs.powernet.co.uk)
There is an interview with George Duke in the May issue of UK mag "Sound On Sound".  Here are a couple of pieces where he talks of working with FZ.

'Having initially collaborated with Frank Zappa on his 'classical-type project' King Kong, with Jean-Luc Ponty, Duke went on to be a mainstay of Zappa's live bands in the 1970s - an experience which was to prove very influential:

"I learned so much from Frank.  I went to this rehearsal, and we were doing this tune, and Frank had written out my part, which was a very simple four-to-the-floor keyboard riff 'pompompompom...'. I'd never heard this side of Frank.  I'd only heard the radical stuff.  And the whole day went like that, and I wasn't feeling comfortable at all.

Frank kept looking at me and asking: 'what's wrong with you?'  In the end I threw my hands up and said: 'I can't play this, man!' And he sais: 'Why? And I said: 'I just can't.' And Frank asked: 'Is there something wrong with your hand?' And I said: 'No.' So he continued: 'well, all you have to do is go 'pompompompom' and tap out the riff".

I responed: 'Yes I know. But you don't understand Frank, I...' And he interrupted: 'Oh, I see, you're a heavy musician. It's beneath you to play that.' I mumbled: 'Well.. well... well... can't I play another idea?' So I started playing some other stuff. But Frank stopped me: 'no, no, no, its like this... 'pompompompompom". But, eventually he broke me down. He told me: 'Look, you can be heavy *and* have a sense of humour. Don't be serious.' And I got it."

(...)

"... I think I made my mark playing instruments like the Minimoog, because I learnt how to make them talk; I learnt how to get the blues out of them. And that's something for which I have to thank Zappa, because he was the one who got me to play a lot of trombone, so I initially played Fender Rhodes and the trombone, and then the ARP Odyssey. I just wanted to do it all. Frank had written parts for the synths, and since there was no patch saving, I'd made all these marks on the synth, because Frank knew if the sound wasn't right. He'd describe certain sounds for me, I'd try to find them, and once I got there he'd say: 'OK, thats it.' And I'd mark it all down. For live playing I had to choreograph everything, so that I knew which parts to play and when to change the synth sounds."

(...)

* * *
regarding the albums on which her recorded frank zappa material
* * *

     From: Lewis Saul (lsaul@azstarnet.com)
Naturally, the Echidna's kicks serious ass.

     From: Patrick Neve (splat@darkwing.uoregon.edu)
"Aura" was reissued on a double CD called "Three Originals" (MPS, 519 198-2). While the issue includes three out-of-print albums from that era, it unfortunately does not include the album "Feel", which is out of print as well and features FZ on guitar. 

     From: Patrick Neve (splat@darkwing.uoregon.edu)
George Duke has always been one of my favorite FZ memebers so I always snap up a used LP when I see one cheaply, hoping for some good music. Mostly I've been pretty disappointed with his solo career, at least the records I was finding, but I kept on because I knew what he was capable of. Well I finally broke down and bought the "Three Originals" re-issue thing and the music seriously cooks!  I had hesitations about buying a double CD basically for two songs (the Zappa covers) but believe me, if you're a George Duke fan this is a good purchase.
This is getting harder to find, and CD Universe is discounting it.  Is it going out of print?  Anyways, I got mine from CD Universe for $24 which I thought was a real good deal-o.
...Oh, and guess what else?
The second disc was loose!

     From: EMDEBE@village.uunet.be - October 8, 1998
A couple of lines from the liner notes by J"rg Eipasch (freelance journalist):

From 1970 to 1975, interrupted only by a two-year interlude with Cannonball Adderley, George Duke performed and recorded with various Zappa ensembles. During this time with what was probably the Mothers Of Invention's most popular line-up, Duke became acquainted with rock & roll and electric keyboards. As a pioneer of the rather new technology of synthesizers, George Duke has to be mentioned in the same breath as Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Don Preston, Jan Hammer, and Sun Ra.

The three albums presented in this two record CD edition had been recorded towards the end of Duke's second period with Frank Zappa, which produced classics such as 'Over-nite Sensation', 'Apostrophe', 'Roxy & Elsewhere', and 'One Size Fits All'...

The music of 'I Love The Blues, She Heard Me Cry', 'The Aura Will Prevail', and 'Liberated Fantasies' is both reflecting the influence Frank Zappa's freaked-out stuff had on George Duke and indicating the keyboardist's later dedication to fusion, funk, and soul music. 'Uncle Remus' and 'Echidna's Arf', songs which had been released previously by Zappa on 'Apostrophy' and 'Roxy & Elsewhere' respectively, display most obviously George Duke's Mothers (Of Invention) fixation. But you can also detect the distinct influences of Zappa's compositional signature in Duke's own 'That's What She Said', a complex, polyrhythmic tune featuring Emil Richards' wizardry on marimba and the violin of John Wittenberg, standing in for the Mother's protagonists Ruth Underwood and Jean-Luc Ponty.

     From: Bossk (R)(wikberg@mbox301.swipnet.se)
    George Duke's extremely soulful solo version of "Uncle Remus" has a slightly different twist to the lyrics than the version on APOSTROPHE ('). On APOSTROPHE ('), the second verse goes:

        We look pretty sharp in these clothes,
        Unless we is sprayed with a hose:
        It ain't bad in the day,
        When they squirt it your way,
        Except in the winter, when it's froze,
        And it's hard when it hits on your nose ...

    But Duke's version changes it to:

        It ain't bad in the day,
        UNLESS they squirt it your way ...

    Some people think this is a totally harmless change, others that it ruins the song completely. What do you think?

Promoting his new album, George Duke will be doing a concert in Paradiso, Amsterdam, NL, 2004/02/15.

line-up: George Duke (vocals/keyboards/piano), Ray Fuller (guitar), Michael Manson (bass), Gordon Campbell (drums) and Lori Perry (lead vocals).

-- info: Zjakki Willems

November 22, 2004, George Duke will receive an Edison (Dutch music award) for his oevre at the 'Doelen' in Rotterdam, NL. For the occasion he will be giving a concert.

-- info: Aad Hoogesteger

December 12, 2004, Dutch radio show "Mix Van Dat Alles" featured special guests George Duke and Napoleon Murphy Brock in the studio. Co de Kloet talked with them about their time with Zappa and about their musical colaboration.

-- info: Aad Hoogesteger

concerts, radio- & tv-specials

billy cobham - george duke band 

• 1976/10/10 concert 'paladium', nyc, ny, usa

  • billy cobham: drums * george duke: keyboards * john scofield: guitar * alphonso johnson: bass

  • ... hip pockets * ivory tattoo * east bay * band introductions * balls to the wall * tryin' and cryin' for your love * giant child within us - ego * blues never hurtin' nobody * uncle remus (duke/zappa) * echidna's arf (zappa) * crescent sun * almustafa the beloved * juicy...

  • a 77-minute soundboard recording of this concert circulates

   

• 1976/12/26 concert 'ivanhoe theater', chicago, il, usa

  • billy cobham: drums * george duke: keyboards * john scofield: guitar * alphonso johnson: bass

  • broadcast on fm radio

  • a 55-minute recording of this concert circulates
    

2002/10/17 George Duke special on dutch television: "NPS Jazz" on Nederland 3.
The above picture shows Dianne Reeves and George Duke at the North Sea Jazz festival (performing 'Misty'), taken from the 2002/10/17 broadcast.

•  
• 2002/10/18    george duke concert on dutch radio 4: "de marathon"
                          + a short int. after the concert
• 2002/12/22    radio show "supplement", the netherlands: "a weird conversation with george duke
  
• 2004/02/15 concert 'paradiso', amsterdam, the netherlands
  
• 2004/06/13 radio show "4fm in concert" -- = part of the 2004/02/15 concert at 'paradiso', amsterdam, the netherlands
• 2004/11/22 concert 'Doelen', Rotterdam, NL
• 2004/11/24 concert 'de melkweg', amsterdam, NL - feat. Napoleon Murphy Brock as special guest, performing Zappa songs
• 2004/12/12 radio show "mix van dat alles", feat. napoleon murphy brock & george duke int. by co de kloet
  
• 2007/01/25 George Duke & Friends - concert "The Smooth Jazz Cruise", Vista Lounge, MS Zuiderdam, NL
  • George Duke - keyboards, vocals, Dwight Sills - guitar, Ronnie Gutierrez - percussion, Nate Phillips - bass, Rayford Griffin - drums, Arlington Jones - keyboards
    Guests: Mindi Abair - alto sax (3), Tom Braxton - tenor sax (4), Jonathan Butler - guitar, vocals (5), Najee - flute (5), alto sax (10 - 12), Marcus Miller - bass (9 - 12), Cederick Johnson - vocals, Yvonne Johnson - vocals, Traci Johnson - vocals

  • 1. Introduction
    2. Fuzzzion
    3. Chillin'
    4. In A Mellow Tone
    5. Cravo E Canela
    6. Songs Introduction
    7. Sweet baby
    8. No Rhyme, No Reason
    9. Let Me Roll
    10. Reach For It
    11. Let Me Ride
    12. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
  • total time: 83 minutes

   

 filmography

• 1971 Frank Zappa's 200 Motels- Member of Mothers of Invention

• 1977 Baby Snakes (on a TV screen in the background)

• 1982 The Dub Room Special

• 1985 The Heavenly Kid (songs producer)

• 1987 The Amazing Mr. Bickford (on a TV screen in the background)

• 1989 "Generations: TV Series- Johnny

• 1989 The True Story of 200 Motels

•      George Duke- Keyboard Improvisation

additional info:
- j.vankemenade