Jazz Balladeer Jon Lucien; A Forerunner of Fusion

The result was his 1970 debut album, "I Am Now," followed by two more for the RCA label, "Rashida" and "Mind's Eye." None sold particularly well. Subsequent albums for CBS -- "Song for My Lady" and "Premonition" -- also failed to boost his popularity, despite top-notch arrangements and his covers of songs by established composers such as Herbie Hancock and Jobim.

Mr. Lucien spoke of his disillusionment with the pop-music industry in the late 1970s. He was married and divorced three times, and in 1980, a baby girl from his third marriage drowned in a pool. He developed a cocaine habit that lasted a decade.

"The truth is, I was scared of the business," he told Essence magazine in 1991. "By the time I made my fifth album I began to realize that I was doing all the music and coming up with all the ideas. Not that I'm in dire need of attention, but I should've been getting the producer credit. I just thought, I've got to get outta here."

Settling in St. Thomas and then Puerto Rico, he struggled with his health. He got married for the fourth and final time in 1988, to Delesa Williams, and slowly reentered the mainstream music business.

In 1996, his teenage daughter from his third marriage, Dalila, was a passenger on TWA Flight 800 when it exploded and crashed off Long Island. Mr. Lucien said he staved off depression by throwing himself into work. He dedicated his 1997 album, "Endless Is Love," to the plane's passengers, who also included the wife of saxophonist Wayne Shorter (Mr. Lucien's onetime brother-in-law).

"That was a heavy lesson," Mr. Lucien told the New York Amsterdam News. "All that I had was my music and my prayers."

In recent years, he made four albums for his own Sugar Apple Music label and had completed a collection that included Christian hymns and self-written spiritual titles.

Survivors include his fourth wife, of Kissimmee, and their daughter; a son from his first marriage; a son from his second marriage; three brothers; two sisters; and two grandchildren.