Stuart Gordon - Extraordinary Musician Passes Away

US Virtuoso violinist among his many talents 10/09/14

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Stuart Gordon, virtuoso violinist, composer, dad and husband passed away 28 August this year. He will be missed by many.

Perhaps not all of you will be familiar with Stuart, but I'm sure most of you will have been exposed to his work in some form or other.

As a musician he was an extremely talented violin player, having worked on many, many classic records, the Korgi's "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" being perhaps the first, but since then Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack, Goldfrapp, Peter Hammill and many more have benefitted from his outstanding talents as a studio musician and producer.

During the early 90's he perfected the method of recording multiple takes to create a string section, using slight variations in tuning and several different instruments to create the sense of more than one player.

Stuart Gordon with the Steve Tilston Trio in 2013

As a live musician he was also an incredible talent, his mastery of the violin with Irish, Gypsy and Jazz styles made for blistering solo's which made him a hard act to follow. Over the last 20 years he toured the world with Van Der Graaf Generator front man Peter Hammill - in Peter's words - "he was the star of the show".

Additionally he was the kingpin of local muso band "The 3 Caballeros", a kind of hot jazz, swing, classic trio featuring the talents of Andy Davis (Korgis, Tears For Fears, Goldfrapp), Pete Allerhand - once voted the UK's top guitarist with the band Interview, and on many occasions Will Gregory of Goldfrapp on Saxophones (yes he does play).

Also a highly credited composer for film and television, he worked on the sound track for several Aardman animations and scored many ITV nature documentaries, dramas and feature films, where his emotional connection to the music score allowed him to be both minimal and effective.

What is clear is that his musical talents spanned many genres and styles

As a bloke he was always smiling or laughing, his Geordie knack for telling the most unsuitable jokes was infectious. I used to share a studio with him during the 1990's he was always fun to be around - his usual greeting was "How's yer bum for cracking walnuts?" - a truly disarming opening line. Today his life was celebrated at an extremely well attended humanist service near Bristol.

A sad day, but also full of great memories.

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