Favorite Organists

[Ducatista47]

I was messing around with YouTube the other day and saw a tribute to the 70th anniversary of the Hammond organ. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ck__wghRww In the related videos I discovered a great player I had never heard of. I thought it would be interesting to have a thread about our favorite organists. Hammond B3, pipe organ, Farfisa, Vox, anything is fair game. I'll start things off with my two favorite artists, both B3 players.

Being a Jazz head, Larry Young is the head of the class for me. He is far less known than Jimmy Smith, but he was closer to my taste for deeper, heavier jazz styles. The CD Unity is available and reasonably priced. It is one of those remastered Rudy Van Gelder albums - remastered by Rudy. The 1965 session is a very good example of why I think he was the greatest. Back in 1975 when I turned on to heavier jazz, a Larry Young album was one of the reasons why.

A disciple, more or less, is my recent discovery. She sounds more like Young than anyone else I have heard, at least sometimes, and she is an amazing technical player as well. The German Barbara Dennerlein plays the B3 with what might pass to some as a normal mode of hand usage, but her left leg plays pedal bass with the speed of a Fender Jazz Bass player. She therefore seldom uses a bass player, but has played with some very impressive talent. She has a CD with Straight Ahead and often used Andy Sheppard as her reed man. My limited German leads me to believe her name is pronounced like "daner-line."

Barbara's recordings are either mostly out of print or not imported to the USA. There are two CD's recently released on a Japanese label, but are rather expensive. She is so good I am actually thinking of ordering them at forty dollars each. There are I think three other discs availlable new. She can be seen on YouTube - a search will turn up performances starting in the eighties. Here is a nice place to start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ut7yIuCE
A search will reveal two pages of videos. Her B3 playing is the hottest you will ever hear, and she is very convincing bringing her modern sensibilities to the pipe organ.

I lied, let me do one more. Having seen a great Blind Faith gig back in the day, Steve Winwood. What a great B3 man he is. The recordings give only a hint of what he can do. While we are at it, don't forget his work in Traffic.

So who do you like?


Clark

[richluvsound]

there was a young lady I met on holiday in Italy a few years back !

Sorry Clark

[Ducatista47]

Nice one, Rich
I can't wait to hear what Ian has to say about your taste in "organ-ists." I should not have ended the list of British organs with Vox, apparently.

I am also expecting some of our esteemed German forum members to wonder out loud why we have not heard of the Goddess of German Jazz.

Clark

[Ducatista47]

A good friend of mine tells me that Richard "Groove" Holmes was something else. Is anyone familiar with his work?

Clark

[Benatti]

I had the chance to attend the living creature in Brazil, the Bruce Katz here, touching a Hammond B3, in the house of spectacles Bourbon Street in São Paulo, Capital.
James Benatti Lansing
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic...39966dkzmc.jpg
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov...89376ec6q2.jpg

[BMWCCA]

I'm a simple man, easily amused: Lee Michaels "Fifth": http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Lee-Michaels/dp/B000002R8D

[Krunchy]

there was a young lady I met on holiday in Italy a few years back !

Sorry Clark

!!! Its good to have you back Rich!

Hi Clark! you always bring up interesting subjects, thank you. What about the Moog, would that be considerable in this context, its such a funky instrument (is it an instrument)??? This should be a fun thread, cant wait to see what shows up on this list.

[richluvsound]

[QUOTE=Krunchy;219057] !!! Its good to have you back Rich!



Iv'e missed you guys too xxxxxxxxx

I'll shut me mouth now and hope to learn a little .

Rich

[Hoerninger]

What about the Moog, would that be considerable in this context, its such a funky instrument (is it an instrument)??? This should be a fun thread, cant wait to see what shows up on this list.

Moog ... thank you for playing the ball, Krunchy!

In may I was at a concert "Oldie Nacht" in Bad Segeberg, look here:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=1J21Yd...eature=related
Among many other artists - do you remember the Shadows? - there was SAILOR, great live performers.

They were happy with their NICKELODEON:

" The instrument is basically Georg's brain-child and is in fact the casing of two upright pianos moulded together to look like an old-fashioned barrel-organ and raised on a rostrum so that it can be played standing up.
Georg rigged up some piano keys to a Piano Mate, two synthesisers and a glockenspiel device was adapted from a series of doorbell mechanism which instead of activating a clapper to hit a bell now sets of little hammers against glockenspiel bars."
[http://www.sailor-marinero.com/nickelodeon.htm]

Clark, organ is not my favorit instrument. But I will add some thoughts I have collected during this day.
____________
Peter

[Rusnzha]

Originally posted by Ducatista47
need to check out Bruce Katz. And if you like flamboyant players, who was that guy in Focus?

Jan Akkerman -- Guitars and Synthesizers
Thijs Van Leer -- Keyboards: Roland JX-3P, Steinway + Bechstein piano, Fairlight, Yamaha DX-7, M.S.Q. 700digital keyboard recorder, Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes Piano, flutes & vocals

One of my favorite players is Jimmy Smith's student, Brian Auger. He has been kicking ass for 40 years now.

[Ducatista47]

Jan Akkerman -- Guitars and Synthesizers
Thijs Van Leer -- Keyboards: Roland JX-3P, Steinway + Bechstein piano, Fairlight, Yamaha DX-7, M.S.Q. 700digital keyboard recorder, Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes Piano, flutes & vocals

One of my favorite players is Jimmy Smith's student, Brian Auger. He has been kicking ass for 40 years now.

Thanks! Wasn't it van Leer who did those unforgettable vocals? I'll have to dig out my vinyl of Hamburger Concerto.

You are bringing me back to my Hippie days. Do you remember the outfit Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWh6x...eature=related

Wow, this album of his sounds really nice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ATR...eature=related

Another I remember very fondly, a member of a great band, the Animals, Alan Price. Here is an early lip-sync, but nice shots of AP on the Vox. Who knows what he recorded it with, I would guess a nice Hammond. Then again, it does sound pretty cheesy. The tall bass player with the beautiful Gibson f hole is Chas Chandler, later Jimi's impresario.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBGXw...eature=related

Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum electrified me with A Whiter Shade Of Pale.
From Wiki: "With a structure reminiscent of Baroque music, realized in the contrapuntal, heavily ornamented lines assigned to Fisher's Hammond organ, Brooker's soulful vocals and Reid's mysterious lyrics, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" reached #1 on the British charts and did almost as well in the United States, reaching #5. In the years since, it has become an enduring classic, placing on several polls of the best songs ever." The mysterious lyrics seem to be about our drunken hero realizing he must make it to the public bathroom in time to relieve his bladder in a socially acceptable manner. Not very mysterious for those of us who have been through it, that is to say nearly all of us!

Clark

[Krunchy]

Moog ... thank you for playing the ball, Krunchy!

Anytime Peter!

[doodlebug]

Ooops, just remembered another great one....Chester Thompson from the early 70s Tower of Power......

Cheers,

David

[toddalin]

Speaking of Hammond's birthday,

My Hammond would be close to 70 years old now. It was a Model D manufactured between 1939 and 1942.

It sounded "meaner" than any B3 and (as I recall) had less "fold over" than the B3.

I traded an M3 and a Wurlitzer electric piano for it straight across and it included a Leslie 122RV (this was in ~1969).

I later picked up a "combo pedal" with a Leslie 147RV so I could put my other keyboards though the Leslie also.

Because the 122 and 147 differ internally and the 122 cannot be driven by the combo pedal, I opened up the 122 and using the 147 as a guide, made the 122 into a 147 by removing some parts and rewiring others (one of my first electronic projects). This worked out perfectly.

When the organ was transported from Las Vegas to LA, my friend who was delivering it hit the inspection station with his van totalling the case and damaging the Leslies.

Valley Sound cut the organ down, but I retained the pedals (a heck of an amphenol connector to the console!) and they added percussion. All the internal tube electronics were removed in the interest of weight. Because of this, the tone wheels would produce sound even with the organ shut off and you could do neat effects by hitting the "start" and "run" switches slowing and speeding up the tone wheels.

The output from the tone wheels is just like a guitar pick-up and can be plugged directly into a high impedience input (guitar amp) without any electronic interface. Valley Sound simply added a 1/4" phone jack to the back. (No Jon Lord didn't need a modification to do this and there is an RCA connector above the swell pedal that also gives direct access to the tone wheels.) The Leslies were refinished in black. The cost for this was $3,000 in 1972 dollars. Insurance paid it all.

BTW, my favorite keyboard player is Keith Emerson. But in a whole 'nother vein, George Duke is really good too.

[boputnam]

The German Barbara Dennerlein plays the B3 with what might pass to some as a normal mode of hand usage, but her left leg plays pedal bass with the speed of a Fender Jazz Bass player.

Hi, Clark...

Good pick! Dennerlein is truly one of a kind.

My other favorites are gentlemen of the B3 that supported the Jerry Garcia Band, Merle Saunders, and of course Melvin Seals. Their work is pretty vast in the R&B and Rock genres - legendary players.


Yes, I work with Melvin these days, but that is luck - not merely a bias...