Noted jazz keyboardist Lyle Mays dies at 66

LOS ANGELES — Lyle Mays, a jazz keyboardist whose work, basically with the Pat Metheny Community, won merely about a dozenGrammy Awards, died Monday in Los Angeles, it used to be announced. He used to be 66.

Mays had a “long battle with a routine illness,” in accordance to Pat Metheny’s web put of living.

“Lyle used to be conception to be among the finest musicians I even possess ever identified,” Metheny wrote. “Across more than 30 years, every 2nd we shared in music used to be particular. From the first notes we played together, we had an rapid bond. His massive intelligence and musical info advised every aspect of who he used to be in every contrivance. I’ll leave out him with all my coronary heart.”

“Lyle used to be a wise musician and particular person, and a genius in every sense of the observe,” said an announcement from his niece, Aubrey Johnson. “He used to be my dear uncle, mentor, and friend and phrases can no longer enlighten the depth of my anxiousness.”

Born in Wausaukee, Wisconsin, Mays’ dad and mom played piano and guitar and he played organ as a teen.

He joined the guitarist neighborhood Metheny within the 1970s, where he used to be a performer, composer and arranger. The neighborhood’s forever revolutionary fusion model included the entire thing from rock and contemporary jazz to world music.

The neighborhood won various jazz performance Emmys, and a few for excellent contemporary jazz album, including 2005’s award for “The Approach Up.” However the neighborhood furthermore scored an award in 1998 for excellent rock instrumental performance for “The Roots of Accident.”

Mays furthermore used to be a sideman for albums by jazz, rock and pa artists, including Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones and the neighborhood Earth, Wind & Fire.

Mays furthermore helped accomplish movie soundtrack music for several movies, including 1985’s “The Falcon and The Snowman.”

Mays, who cherished the technical and analytical aspects of his craft as properly as the improvisational phase, furthermore used to be a self-taught computer programmer and architect who designed a home for a relative.