Malcolm Cecil, the brilliant bassist, synthesist, producer, and engineer passed away on March 28th. He was best known for his work with his partner Robert Margouleff on four of Stevie Wonder's 1970s releases: Music Of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, and Fulfillingness' First Finale.
Cecil helped create the TONTO system used on many of Wonder's albums. TONTO was a large custom-built synthesizer system that combined modules from ARP, Moog, Serge, and Oberheim. It had a number of customized switch triggers and sequencers that allowed the modules to communicate with each other, years ahead of the MIDI protocol that arrived in the 80s.
RIP Malcolm, and thank you for all the great music and inspiration!
Tom
And TONTO was even a character on “Phantom Of The Paradise” (1974).
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Mark did house TONTO while they were looking for a permanent home. It now resides at the National Music Center in Calgary, Alberta Canada.
Tom
Was informed yesterday that Mark Mothersbaugh is in possession of TONTO now.
Also it has to be said that those four Stevie Wonder releases involving Malcolm and TONTO in the early '70s are Stevie's best, methinks. I sort of lost track of Stevie Wonder sometime in the '80s.
I mean, of course, Songs In The Key of Life and The Secret Life Of Plants are way up there with those four.
Also that Steve Hillage record Malcolm worked on, Motivation Radio, is a goodie.
He's also involved with the only Isley Brothers record I've ever purchased -- because of the song That Lady -- namely 3 + 3.
I realise now the other place I'd seen that name TONTO . . .
Wowed. What an interesting fellow. I didn’t know about TONTO, but I’d seen the word I guess on Stevie Wonder releases. Thanks, Parsongs.
https://youtu.be/AzOlT4uz1Eo