Tributes have been paid to musician Winston DeGraff, who died last Saturday from stomach cancer.

Senior trumpeter Vernon Ghandi Burgess said Mr. DeGraff entered the music scene like a "meteor coming through the blue sky" to organise the finest small modern day jazz group, Legacy, which started about 12 years ago.

Mr. Burgess, who called Mr. DeGraff "irreplaceable", was devastated to learn of his death.

"He's left a void and I don't think there's anybody who can fill it," he said. The musician who "carried his trumpet with him always" worked hard at the family's businesses, Byrdie's Cafe and DeGraff's lunch wagon in City Hall parking lot.

Neilson DeGraff said his brother was very good with his customers who included executives from exempt companies.

Mr. DeGraff explained: "One guy in particular would call him 'Cousin'. He would take junior executives to the lunch wagon for business lunches and they would eat hamburgers and beef pies."

When the afternoons were slow at the lunch cart, he would practice his trumpet, his older brother said.

"He just loved to play and he always had his horn with him wherever he went."

Mr. DeGraff said the trumpet accompanied his brother who visited an overseas hospital even though "he couldn't really blow it because he was too weak to play". The "keen player" also spent approximately eight years in the Bermuda Regiment Band as lead trumpeter.

"He was constantly practising on his own and he was instrumental in instructing younger members of the band," Director of Music Major Barrett Dill said.

Although Mr. DeGraff spent time developing his band, mentoring young musicians, and improving his skill, he was devoted to his family.

He was always with his wife Ann-Marie a lot in the garden. He was handy with hands," Mr. DeGraff said referring to his brother's wife of 14 years.

And his niece, Tossha DeGraff, said his five-year-old daughter Asha was his "pride and joy" and "his world".