Farewell to Chuck Loeb | Guitar Player

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   Photo of Chuck Loeb by John Secoges 

   Unfortunately, here we are writing another remembrance for a fallen jazz-guitar soldier this year—Chuck Loeb, who passed away on July 31, 2017 of cancer at just 61 years old.

   I was good friends with Chuck, and we recorded a number of songs together through the years. Chuck was such a great guy, and an incredible guitarist—right up there with Pat Metheny and Joe Pass. We were both native New Yorkers, and we were raised on jazz fusion through the '70s. Before there was smooth jazz, there was quality fusion, and CD101.9 FM radio in New York was the forefront in this movement. I remember Chuck saying when the format moved to smooth jazz, the first thing to go in a song was always the guitar solo—to make room for more sax!

   Chuck joined Steps Ahead in the mid 1980s and appeared on three albums: Modern Times (1984), Magnetic (1986) and Yin Yang (1992). Then, he had a successful solo career with more than 21 releases, and enjoyed many hits on smooth-jazz radio. In 2010, when Larry Carlton left the super-group Fourplay, Chuck took over his guitar role and was with them until his passing. The Foreplay album Jazz, Funk, Soul earned a Grammy nomination in 2014. 

   Like many of today's jazz guitarists, Chuck never used an amp in the studio, relying on either a Line 6 modeler or an amp plug-in. On stage, however, he did use two Roland Blues Cubes for stereo imaging, along with his custom-made Sadowsky guitars.

   Here's a wonderful demo...