Fireside Chat

George Duke

Heads Up, Los Angeles

George Duke has left a mark on the last four decades of jazz and pop that's as deep as it is wide. Born in San Rafael, California, in January 1946, his mother took him to a performance by that other Duke of jazz, Duke Ellington. He admits that he doesn't remember too much of the performance, but something profound must have been absorbed, as he spent the subsequent several days demanding a piano. He began his training on the instrument aged only seven and his earliest influence came from the culturally rich black music of his local Baptist church. However he was soon listening to Miles Davis, Les McCann and Cal Tjader and attending the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After college he joined Al Jarreau in forming the house band at the Half Note in the city, one of the first of a mass of artists that were queuing up to play with him. Over the years he collaborated with the likes of Frank Zappa, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Cobham and Stanley Clarke and produced records for Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jeffrey Osborne, Smokey Robinson and The Pointer Sisters, and earning himself a rep as a heavyweight keys legend in the process. With over thirty years of solo recordings in his canon, George Duke certainly has some stories to tell.