Tuesday July 29, 2008

Jazz guitarist JOE BECK has lost his battle with lung cancer. He was 62.

The star died at a hospice in Connecticut on 22 July (08), according a spokesperson at the Munson-Lovetere funeral home.

Beck began his career as a teenager in the 1960s, when he joined a jazz trio in New York.

He soon establish himself in the music industry and went on to perform with the likes of Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra and James Brown.

He was known as an accomplished studio and session artist, arranger and producer, and was honoured no less than five times as a Most Valuable Player by the U.S. National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

One of his biggest hits was 1975’s Beck and Sanborn, a fusion classic which was recorded with saxophonist David Sanborn.

He also went on to teach guitar to students at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, Connecticut.

Beck will be laid to rest on Tuesday, with a memorial scheduled to take place at 11am (EST) at the First Congregational Church of Woodbury.