Colin MacLean bubbles over with stories when talking about his close friend Tommy Banks, the renowned Edmonton jazz pianist and former Canadian senator who died Thursday.

“Tommy led the way for all of us actually, in almost any field,” MacLean, a former CBC radio and television personality, said Friday. “He was many things. He lived many lives.”

Banks was 81 when he died. His family issued a statement saying he died peacefully surrounded by family and staff at the Grey Nuns palliative care unit in