John Joseph Esak, born March 6th, 1949, Englewood, NJ, passed away October 28th, 2024, Tucson, AZ.

John Joseph Esak's life was a melody of creativity, intellect, and humor. His intelligence and wide ranging curiosity led him to study sciences and physics in college before ultimately pursuing a Masters degree in Composition of Music reflecting his passion for both science and music.  John didn't just listen to music; he created, arranged, and engineered it. As a studio sound engineer, he produced artists like John Hammond, The Elders, and The Outlaws; as a stage sound engineer, he engineered concerts for artists like Eric Clapton and The Charlie Daniels Band. Performing himself, he opened for bands including The J. Geils Band and Styx. An early proud moment was engineering the sound for the Fourth Of July concert on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., preceding the national fireworks display.

As a chief technical design engineer, John led the creation of an 80-room complex of Listening Rooms for the Library of Congress. He had a similar role in designing and deploying the now familiar red assist button seen in all metro stations throughout Washington D.C.

John was a sound engineer, a technical engineer, a master electrician, a technical wizard and quite possibly an actual wizard!  Developing technical expertise, John's career evolved into computer engineering and software development. He could not only build a computer from parts, he could make it sit up and beg. He spent a lot of time working with a mighty little database called filePro. It's possible he was active on the filePro forums five minutes before he logged out of the universe. He used filePro to help create the first ever nationwide Charge Data System for the United States EEOC.  He was an expert in *nix, filePro, C, C++, shell, (and pretty much anything else he could read about for 5 minutes) leading him to create The Guru magazine and The filePro Cookbook, magazines which had over 3,000 subscribers by the time he stopped production.

John's devotion to music never dimmed and retirement gave him the opportunity to focus on it more than ever before. He played the guitar, keyboard, and the drums and enjoyed performing for Tucson Contra Dancers as the percussionist with Rave Review. He immersed himself in building a recording studio adapted for his blindness, where he could create freely.

On YouTube, if you search for "John Esak", you'll find one of his songs, "Hanging By A Thread", and a video on how he set up his recording studio and set it up to be blind-friendly. If you search for "World Lament by Rave Review" you'll find the most recent song John wrote, sang and produced.

John believed any problem could solved by listening to The Beatles.  He once told his daughter, Robin, that if movies like "Holiday Inn", "Victor/Victoria", and "White Christmas" were required in school, the world would be a better place.

Anyone who met John, knew immediately that his intellect, his humor, his whimsy, and his accomplishments were boundless. He is missed by his family, his friends, and by anybody who ever played in a pool with him.  The music made by Rave Review, that provided him so much joy will never be the same without this favorite percussionist.

John was the third child of Joseph Esak and Mae Tashjy Esak. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brothers, Joseph Ronald Esak and Richard Louis Esak. He is survived by his sister, Donna Esak Fulton, M.D.; and by his daughters, Robin Johnson Esak and "DIL-I-Never-Wanted" Patricia Sue Niles; Renee Ann Meager; Tawnee Marie Hunt and his nieces and nephews, Anne Fulton-Cavett, Lisa Esak, Joseph Esak, Shamera Esak Sandoski, and Richard Joseph Kase; and his grandchildren, Christian George Riley, Jason Matthew Hunt, and Alannah Marie Wituscheck.

No services are planned.  Donations can be made to Tucson Friends of Traditional Music , a 501c3 dba Tucson Contra Dancers,  PO Box 12071, Tucson Arizona 85732.