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The Japanese guitarist, composer, and inventor Ryo Kawasaki has died, his daughter confirmed on Facebook. He was 73.
Between pioneering the jazz fusion field in the 1960s and ’70s and issuing house music singles in the ’80s and ’90s, Kawasaki helped develop the earliest waves of guitar-synth technology alongside Korg and Roland. He also developed the Kawasaki Synthesizer program for the popular Commodore 64 computer system.
Kawasaki was born in Tokyo in 1947. He picked up music at an early age, developing a concurrent interest in electronics. From the love for jazz he found as a teenager, he grew into a skilled guitarist. Kawasaki relocated to New York in 1973, falling in with the loft scene and finding work as a session guitarist and touring sideman before eventually devoting more of his time to his solo projects. His albums, like 1976’s Juice, were exemplary in the unusual sounds and techniques that Kawasaki brought to the fore.
His final album of studio material was last year’s Giant Steps, solo acoustic guitar compositions recorded between 2007 and 2012.