Jazz keyboardist and composer Earl Neal Creque, whose distinctive, R&B-flavored playing backed such musicians as percussionist Mongo Santamaria and, most notably, guitarist Grant Green, died on Friday in Cleveland, Ohio. The native St. Thomian was 60 and was a professor of music at Oberlin College in Cleveland.
Gov. Charles W. Turnbull extended his condolences to the Creque family in a statement issued Tuesday.
"We have lost an outstanding Virgin Islander and musical giant who has shaped the development of music, not only in the Virgin Islands but the United States and Europe," Turnbull said. "The Virgin Islands and music fans everywhere mourn his passing."
Creque was the youngest of eight children born into a musical family. His father, Cyril Creque, was an organist and poet, and his sister, the late Joyce Creque Mathews, also played the organ and was music supervisor for the San Juan public schools in Puerto Rico.
Earl Neal Creque was at one time organist for Frederick Evangelical Lutheran Church in Charlotte Amalie. But it was as a jazz organist that he made his name, and Creque is often mentioned alongside such greats on the instrument as Jack McDuff, Charles Earland and Shirley Scott.
He worked with Quincy Jones and accompanied vocalists Carmen McRae and Melba Moore, but it was his playing on some classic Blue Note albums by Grant Green in the late 1960s and early '70s that solidified his reputation. On the 1970 release "Green is Beautiful," he also contributed a couple of compositions, "Windjammer" and "Dracula."
Creque is survived by his wife, Nina Ruth Brown Creque and daughters Kim and Nina. A memorial service for Creque was scheduled for Wednesday at Oberlin College.
