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Jackie Miklos Orszaczky
Recently, I had the sad news that my good friend Jackie Orszaczky had passed
away February 3, 2008, after a long illness.
Jackie and I first played together in 1976 as members of the Marcia Hines
band. A good friendship was struck up and Jackie was generous in sharing his
wealth of musical knowledge. Although I had been playing for many years my
understanding of musical theory was not too good. I can remember quite
vividly sitting in a hotel room in Melbourne with Jackie and him explaining
in simple terms how the mathematics of music worked. The penny dropped for
me and suddenly everything made sense. From there the only direction was
forward. Jackie was a very big influence on my guitar playing and introduced
me to scales I didn¹t know existed. Back in those days there were no DVDs of
great guitar players showing the tricks of the trade so that knowledge was
invaluable. He was an extraordinary bass player and also a great singer,
composer and musical arranger. Playing with Jackie was always a blast and he
encouraged me a step outside the boundaries of the norm.
While we were on the road Jackie also taught me how to play Chess. I got
into it big time and read Chess books so I could move to his level quicker.
We spent many hours on tour with the magnetic portable Chessboard and I
remember one game starting on a flight to Brisbane and continuing in the
taxi to the hotel and finishing over lunch.
In 1979, toward the end of the Marcia Hines period the band members put our
own Jazz Fusion band together. The next project was a band called Bland
Frenzy. Progressive New Wave is probably a good description of that. Soon
after that I formed the Imports with Malcolm Wakeford and Jackie was kind
enough to fill while we were between bass players.
I know my story is only one. Everybody who came in contact with Jackie has a
story to tell. He was a positive force in the music scene and will be missed
my many.
ABC News report
Jackie's website