Versatile guitarist who helped jazz legend Miles Davis go electric

Joe Beck, who died on 22 July, 2008, aged 62, was a noted American jazz guitarist.

He was best known for being the first electric guitarist to play with Miles Davis in the late 1960s and he was a pioneer of the jazz-rock style.

He was a prolific session musician and collaborated with the likes of Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Herbie Hancock and other luminaries of jazz.

Comfortable mixing styles, he also worked with folksters like Richie Havens and Paul Simon, disco singer Gloria Gaynor and even the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

He was born in Philadelphia and spent periods of his childhood in New Jersey and San Francisco before moving to New York in the early '60s, explaining the eclectic range of genres he was comfortable working in.

He recorded several solo albums of varying styles and also composed music for film and television. Sporadically during his career he also took years out at a time to run dairy farms.

Shortly before his death he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and died a week before his 63rd birthday in Connecticut.