By Godfrey Lee

The late musician and music producer George Duke, a former Marin City resident who passed away in 2013, is being remembered during Marin City’s 80th Anniversary celebration this year.

Duke was born George Mac Duke on Jan. 12, 1946, in San Rafael, California. He grew up in Marin City and attended the First Missionary Baptist Church.

Duke first got interested in music when his mother took him to see Duke Ellington in concert when he was 4 years old. When they got home, he went crazy and ran around saying “Get me a piano, get me a piano!” his mother said.

Duke began studying the piano at age 7. He learned a lot about music and absorbed the roots of Black music while attending the First Missionary Baptist Church in Marin City, observing “how music could trigger the emotions in a cause-and-effect relationship.”

Duke played in a number of high school jazz groups when he attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley and was influenced by Miles Davis, Les McCann and Cal Tjader. Duke received his bachelor’s degree in music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1967.

Duke then formed a group with the late Al Jarreau at San Francisco’s Half Note Club, and worked at the Both/And with Letta Mbulu, Sunny Rollins and Dexter Gordon.

George later received a master’s degree in music composition from San Francisco State University and briefly taught a course on Jazz and American Culture at Merritt Junior College in Oakland.

Duke and Jean-Luc Ponty captured the attention of the jazz world with their jazz fusion album “The Jean-Luc Ponty Experience” with the George Duke Trio in 1969.

In the early 1970s, Duke also collaborated with other musicians, such as Frank Zappa, and in 1971 with Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. He also worked with artists such as Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Stanley Clarke, Flora Purim, and Airto Moreira.

Duke also collaborated and performed with Jeffrey Osborne, Deniece Williams, Stanley Clarke, Barry Manilow, Smokey Robinson, The Pointer Sisters, Gladys Knight and Anita Baker.

In 1973, Duke, Zappa and Jean-Luc Pont formed a band that stayed together for the next three years. Duke then left to perform with drummer Billy Cobham.

In 1978, Duke’s funk heavy album “Reach for It” went gold and propelled him to the top of the music charts. A year later, he recorded his best-known album, “A Brazilian Love Affair.”

Duke directed numerous musical television specials, including the Soul Train Music Awards. He also worked in television and film scoring during the 1990s, and on films such as “The Five Heartbeats,” “Karate Kid III,” “Leap of Faith,” “Good Fences,” and “Never Die Alone.”

He received multiple Grammy nominations, the Edison Lifetime Achievement Award, and Keyboard Magazine’s “R&B Keyboardist of The Year,” and won a Grammy for producing the Best Jazz Vocal Album: Dianne Reeves’ “In the Moment.”

Over the course of his life, Duke produced 32 studio albums, nine collaboration albums, 47 singles, and eight live albums.

He passed on Aug. 5, 2013, at age 67.

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