On May 19, the great guitarist and commercially successful producer Reggie Lucas passed away due to complications from heart disease at age 65. (I was on vacation when this sad event happened, so please forgive the lateness of this post.)
To those who pay attention to the Billboard charts and commercial radio, Lucas is renowned for his co-compositions with fellow Miles alum/percussionist Mtume for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway's "The Closer I Get to You," Stephanie Mills's Grammy-winning 1980 hit "Never Knew Love Like This Before," and for six of the eight songs he produced on Madonna's 1983 self-titled debut LP, including "Borderline," "Burning Up," and "Lucky Star."
To those into the infernal jazz-funk of Miles's '70s peaks, such as On the Corner, Dark Magus, Pangaea, Agharta, and Get Up with It, Lucas is revered for his intense, snarling guitar that was one of the outstanding trademarks in the legendary trumpeter's most outré, form-busting excursions—an important spice in the bubbling cauldron of improvisation Miles facilitated. (Impressively, Lucas joined his unit at the age of 18, after Miles asked, "You wanna be in my band, motherfucker?") Consequently, many minds have been blown and musicians inspired by Lucas's (along with Pete Cosey's, John McLaughlin's, and Dominique Gaumont's, too) scathing riffs and vibrant coloration in those above-mentioned releases.
The contrast between the work Lucas did for Davis and his later high-profile productions and writing could not be more stark, and it reveals a musical range that few can match.
In addition to these efforts, Lucas also played guitar in soul singer Billy Paul's group before joining Miles Davis's, while later working with the Four Tops, Phyllis Hyman, Mtume, Lou Rawls, Gary Bartz (another former Miles Davis sideman), the Spinners, and the Weather Girls, and issued two albums as a leader, 1976's Survival Themes and 1982's Sunfire.
But nothing Lucas did in those contexts could top the contributions he made to Davis's most incendiary and divisive masterpieces from the first half of the '70s. RIP, Reggie Lucas.
