Archives

George Duke

George Duke grew up in Marin City, California, an unincorporated community developed first to house Sausalito shipyard workers during World War II. He attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, already excelling in music, and went on to classical studies (trombone and piano) at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Stints with Cannonball Adderley and […]

George Duke on Producing Jeffrey Osborne

With his third solo record, Jeffrey Osborne pretty much throws out the formula, and he emerges all the stronger for it. In a year when he could have been buried on the charts by the likes of Lionel Richie, Prince, Michael Jackson, Billy Ocean, Phillip Bailey and Al Jarreau, he put out Don’t Stop, which […]

Duke of Funk

SAN FRANCISCO — Try to write a lead paragraph that sums up all of what George Duke is. It’s a near impossibility, owing to the fact that Duke’s musical career has been a remarkable series of transitions: from jazz virtuoso to rock and roll showman, from Brazilian music to space funk, recording a new “concept […]

George Duke: The Ears Have It

George Duke finished a stint as musical director of David Sanborn’s Sunday Night and quickly flew back to the West Coast to remix a 12-inch single of “All Or Nothing At All” for Al Jarreau. Dance singles are not Duke’s favorite thing to do, but the 43-year-old was having fun with this funky, rapid-fire groove […]