Joey DeFrancesco died at the age of 51: jazz was left without its new great organist

Organist Joey DeFrancesco died yesterday in the United States for reasons still unknown.

The news of his death was spread on social networks by his wife Gloria: “The love of my life is now at peace with the angels. Right now I have very few words. Thank you for all that outpouring of love and support that comes to me from all over. Joey loved you all. “

He was 51 years old.

a child prodigy

Joey was a gifted musician, with a swing that thrilled the audience and a style full of fast and slippery melodic lines, playing with countless artists including Ray Charles, Miles Davis, George Benson, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, Arturo Sandoval, Van Morrison , Diana Krall, James Moody, Bobby Hutcherson, Larry Coryell and David Sanborn.

He has been nominated four times for the Grammy Awards. and has recorded as a leader more than 30 albums.

He was a child prodigy on the organ. He made his debut at the age of 4 playing no less than compositions by the great Jimmy Smith (1928-2005) on the organ. At the age of 10, he joined a Philadelphia band in which Hank Mobley played tenor sax and the drummer was Philly Joe Jones. The band became strong in that city and ended up opening for artists like BBKing or Wynton Marsalis, among others.

He followed in the footsteps of his father, the famous organist Papa Giovanni DeFrancesco, however, the tone that Joey gave to his music marked the rebirth, in the mid-1980s, of the “jazz organ”, which entered a period of hibernation. .

Born in Pennsylvania in June 1971 into a family of three generations of musicians, Joey DeFrancesco certainly had a natural gift for music. After touring with Miles Davis, he started playing the trumpet and on his latest album More Musicreleased in September last year, he played organ, trumpet and tenor sax.

The rebirth of the organ

His artistic career was boosted by his first album All of Me, released in 1980, where it excels on the Hammond B3 organ, its main instrument. During a television performance, with his classmate, double bass player Christian McBride, Discovered by Miles Davis who included him in his band and recorded the album Amanda (1989).

At this point, DeFrancesco had already created what he was called philadelphia plays hammonda fresh style but embellished by his ferocious improvisations and by the deep bass lines with the organ pedals that transmitted an infectious swing.

Among the different projects he has had, he stands out The free spirits (1993), an organ trio, with John MacLaughlin on guitar and Dennis Chambers on drums, which lasted four years with two very interesting albums: Tokyo live (where the trumpet would sound) e after the rain.

In 1999 he recorded incredible! (1999) a live album at the San Francisco Festival with none other than his idol Jimmy Smith, with whom he recorded two compositions. Five years later, in 2004, she launched Inheritancealso with Jimmy Smith which, by the way, was the last album recorded by this artist.

Joey was a very active artist, but also prolific in terms of recording. In fact, the rhythmic strength he drew from the Hammond along with his solos, so full of vigor and creativity, made him an unbeatable musician on stage. Their concerts were real parties that never seemed to end.

He got tired of winning Down Beat polls in the organist category and in 2014 he entered the Hall of Fame of the Hammond organ and in 2016 the Philadelphia Music Walk.

His business had declined since 2014, but he continued with his shows and recordings, albeit in a more measured way. Specifically, on August 14 she played in Baltimore and tomorrow, August 27, she is scheduled to perform at the Lewinson Jazz Festival in New York, which seems to indicate that her death was surprising. No further official details have yet been released.

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