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“Brother” Jack McDuff was born Eugene McDuffy on September 17, 1926 in Champaign, Illinois. He began his musical career playing bass first with Joe Farrell followed by Willis Jackson who encouraged him to take up the organ. In the late 50’s he moved to his new instrument and began attracting the attention of Prestige Records. He soon became a bandleader, leading groups that featured then, young guitarist George Benson, saxophonist Red Holloway and drummer Joe Dukes.

McDuff’s debut recording “Brother Jack” for Prestige was followed by his sophomore project, The Honeydripper, featuring Jimmy Forrest and Grant Green.  After his Prestige tenure he joined the Atlantic Records family for a brief period and then by the 70s was recording for Blue Note.

The decreasing interest in jazz and blues during the late 70s and 1980s meant that many jazz musicians went through a lean time and it wasn’t until the late 1980s, with The Re-Entry, recorded for the Muse label in 1988, and once again began a successful period of recordings, initially for Muse, then on the Concord Jazz label from 1991. George Benson appeared on his mentor’s 1992 Colour Me Blue album.

Despite health problems, Brother Jack continued working and recording throughout the 1980s and 1990s, touring Japan with Atsuko Hashimoto in 2000. “Captain” Jack McDuff, as he later became known, was one of the most prominent jazz organist and organ trio bandleader during the hard bop and soul jazz era of the Sixties. He passed away of heart failure on January 23, 2001 at the age of 74 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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