Keyboardist

Like most contemporary jazz artists, keyboardist Tom Grant was faced with a problem: how to make his music distinctive. For the 40-year-old Grant, the solution was to put that warhorse of music, the acoustic piano, at the center of his group's sound. "The piano's a voice that's in everything we do," Grant said in a telephone interview from a tour stop in Houston recently. "I rely on it. Of course, we have the blend of the individual instrumentalists, but the piano is the focus."

Danny Federici, a keyboard player who was a longtime member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died Thursday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, according to an announcement on Springsteen's website. He was 58. Federici had battled melanoma for three years. He had taken a leave of absence in November during the band's current tour. He returned to play portions of a show in Indianapolis in March. Springsteen's concerts tonight and Saturday in Florida have been postponed.

Merl Saunders, a keyboardist best known for his collaborations with Grateful Dead front man Jerry Garcia, died Friday at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco of complications from a stroke he had several years ago. Saunders was 74. A musician who worked in a variety of genres in a long and varied career, Saunders played piano and keyboard but favored the Hammond B3 organ. He led his own bands and worked with an array of musicians, including the blues-oriented Bonnie Raitt and B.B.

Keyboardist Kei Akagi was playing Motown favorites last Friday for dancers in a Santa Monica nightspot. Two nights later, he appeared with his quartet at Le Cafe, offering spirited originals that he calls "fusion from the jazz side." This week, he is working as part of a duo. "I'll play just about any kind of music, as long as it's good," Akagi, 31, said over a cup of coffee, just before hitting the stage in Santa Monica. "Well, almost any kind.

John J. Cascella, 45, a keyboardist for rock singer John Mellencamp. Cascella, known for his work on accordion, joined the Mellencamp band 10 years ago and was an integral element of the group's folk-rock sound. Cascella also owned Cascella Productions, which created music for commercials and movies in Indianapolis. In Indianapolis on Saturday of an apparent heart attack.

Clarence Alexander "Skip" Scarborough, 58, who shared a Grammy in songwriting for "Giving You the Best That I Got," died of cancer July 3 in Los Angeles. Scarborough lived in Owings Mills, Md., but was in the Southland to visit family and work on a songwriting project. He earned his Grammy, with co-writer Randy Holland, in 1988 for best R&B song. The single of "Giving You the Best" was recorded by Anita Baker.

William "Smitty" Smith, 53, a songwriter and rock, soul and gospel keyboardist. The Virginia-born Smith worked with Canadian rock bands the Soul Searchers, Grant Smith and the Power, and Motherlode, with which he recorded the popular "When I Die" in 1969. He came to Los Angeles in 1970 and worked with Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Billy Joel, Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Pointer Sisters, with whom he recorded "I'm So Excited." After Smith suffered a stroke on New Year's Day 1992, several performers including Browne, Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt staged a benefit performance for him at the Palace in Hollywood.

From funk to fugues, Golden West College instructor Gerry Schroeder will cover it all during his concert Sunday at the school's Mainstage Theatre, an event he bills as "Some Music With My Friends." Quoting the old Duke Ellington line about the two kinds of music, good and bad, the 58-year-old teacher-keyboardist says: "Labels don't interest me. They're just to help people in record stores find where to put things."

Richard Wright, the founding member of Pink Floyd whose piano and synthesizer work played a critical part in the pioneering British psychedelic rock band's ethereal sound, died Monday after a short battle with cancer, his spokesman said. He was 65. Doug Wright, who is not a relative, said Wright died at his home in England and that his family did not wish to release any more information, the Associated Press reported. Wright never achieved the high public profile of the group's three key figures -- founding singer-guitarist Syd Barrett and the often-feuding co-leaders, singer-bassist Roger Waters and singer-guitarist David Gilmour, who joined shortly before Barrett left in 1968.

At a time when more electronic toys are available than ever, jazz keyboardist Bob James is returning to basics. On his new album, "Grand Piano Canyon," James, who has often used synthesizers, does all of his improvising on an acoustic grand. James plays the Bacchanal on Saturday night with a six-piece ensemble including rising star Kirk Whalum on sax and James' musical collaborator, Max Risenhoover, on synthesizers.