Joe Beck

Biography

Born in Philadelphia, Beck moved to Manhattan in his teens, playing six nights a week in a trio setting, which gave him an opportunity to meet various people working in the thriving New York music scene. By the time he was 18, Stan Getz had used him to record some jingles, and in 1967 he recorded with Miles Davis. By 1968, at age 22, he was a member of the Gil Evans Orchestra. Beck described his early success in an interview near the end of his life:

Beck played in a variety of jazz styles, including jazz fusion, post bop, mainstream jazz and soul jazz, but also respected rock stylists and cross-over players (he was good friends with Larry Coryell) and briefly flirted with rock music styles himself in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1970 he released Rock Encounter on Polydor Records. In 1975 he released an eponymous album (upon which he simply referred to himself as "Beck") while recording the Esther Phillips album, What a Diff'rence a Day Makes, both on Kudu Records. Beck was subsequently reissued as Beck & Sanborn to cash in on the success of alto saxophonist David Sanborn. In 1978, he went for more of a rock sound by forming a band named "Leader". They performed in the Northeast and recorded demos at Sound Ideas Studios in New York City, but soon disbanded when the band's gear was stolen after a gig at Joyous Lake in Woodstock, New York. In the 1980s Beck recorded several CDs for the DMP Digital Music Products label, including co-billed work with the noted flautist Ali Ryerson. In 2000, he released a collaboration with Jimmy Bruno, Polarity, and Coincidence in 2008 with John Abercrombie.

Over the years Beck worked as a sideman or session guitarist with a wide variety of well-known jazz, rock, and fusion musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Howard Roberts, Tommy Tedesco, Larry Coryell, John Abercrombie, Tom Scott and Jeremy Steig, among many others. In mid-life Beck spent less time playing and worked more as a composer of commercial jingles and as an arranger, writing arrangements for such people as Frank Sinatra and Gloria Gaynor. He returned to stage performing and touring in the late 1980s.

For the next two decades Beck toured and recorded with duos and small groups, releasing two more solo albums (1988, 1991) before retiring in 2000. Following his retirement and up until his death, Beck continued to tour occasionally, and released a number of collaborative albums (e.g., Coincidence, with John Abercrombie, 2007).

Beck died in Woodbury, Connecticut, of complications from lung cancer. His album Get Me Joe Beck was posthumously released in 2014. Before his death in 2005 and 2006 he taught the guitar club as a volunteer at nonnewaug high school in Woodbury Connecticut.

Alto guitar

In 1992 Beck began touring as a duo with flutist Ali Ryerson. To fill out the sound he wanted to present—bass lines, harmony, and melody—in a duo setting, he developed what he called the "alto guitar". This began as a standard full-body electric jazz guitar with a unique stringing pattern and a reentrant tuning. As described by Beck:

While devising the tuning Beck realized that some restringing was going to be needed to obtain optimal resonance from the strings, so he commissioned a custom-built instrument from luthier Rick McCurdy, of Cort Guitars:

As leader

As sideman

With Gene Ammons

With Gato Barbieri

With John Berberian

With James Brown

With Jimmy Bruno

With Rusty Bryant

With Hank Crawford

With Miles Davis

With Richard Davis

With Duke Ellington and Teresa Brewer

With Gil Evans

With Joe Farrell

With Maynard Ferguson

With Ronnie Foster

With Chico Hamilton

With J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding

With Al Kooper

With Hubert Laws

With Brother Jack McDuff

With Blue Mitchell

With Idris Muhammad

With Houston Person

With Esther Phillips

With Dom Um Romao

With Don Sebesky

With Paul Simon

With Leon Spencer

With Bobby Timmons

With Kai Winding