Jazz organ history

[Tom Storer]

At the risk of provoking the scorn and incredulity of the many fine Organissimo posters, I am here to admit that I've never really listened to much jazz organ music. But I'm beginning!

It's all thanks to Dan Gould's Blindfold Test #2 (the theme was "Grease!"). After listening to it and enjoying it, I went back to my Houston Person recordings from Savant, and noticed that he has one on emusic that I hadn't downloaded: The Groove Master Series, Vol. 1: The Opening Round. That record, it turns out, is a very nice and easy session with soft grooves and romantic ballads, some light blues. Joey DeFrancesco is part of the band, and really caught my ear, so I downloaded three of his albums available on emusic, as well as three by Charles Earland, and some B3 anthology album as well. As I type, my trusty computer is downloading albums by Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, and Richard "Groove" Holmes.

From what I've read as I set up these downloads, it would seem that Jimmy Smith revolutionized the instrument in the mid-50's, and that there have been several major practitioners with distinctive styles of their owns; Joey DeFrancesco seems to be the modern-day whiz kid, expertly mining the styles of the historical greats and adding his own virtuosity and curiosity into the mix. So far so good?

So what I'd like here is more meat: if Jimmy Smith revolutionized the Hammond organ, what the hell did it sound like before Jimmy Smith? Was there even a pre-Jimmy Smith? Who are the greatest organists and what distinguishes them? What's with the focus on the Hammond B-3? Aren't there other manufacturers, or other models from Hammond? Is there any school competing with the B3 crowd? (Is there no one who is "King of the Acme X12"?)

Help me die less ignorant, organ fans!

[Harold_Z]

Prior to the B3 I know there was a B2 (seriously) and from that I would assume there was a B1. This sounds like we're talking about vitamins.

I'v also seen C3 Hammonds which are B3 like but with panels on the sides instead of the leg posts. Possibly they had self contained speakers - I'm not sure. I think one reason the B series was popular with jazz guys is that the setup and registrations allowed the use of the left hand for playing basslines. The M series Hammonds were smaller and did not lend themselves to the use of the left hand for playing bass lines.

Some of the pre- Jimmy players were Fats Waller, Count Basie, Wild Bill Davis, Bill Doggett. Recently wkcr even played some 1936 broadcasts of Jelly Roll Morton playing organ - and he sounded great. Anybody know if those are commercially available?

[Tom Storer]

Thanks, Harold. I knew about those earlier organ players - in Basie's autobiography he talks about Waller teaching him to play the organ in the orchestra pit of cinemas, playing for silent movies. And didn't Wild Bill Davis make a record with Duke?

But what kind of organ did they play? When did Hammond start to monopolize the field?

And did Davis and Doggett play the kind of organ music made so popular by Jimmy Smith, i.e. greasy, bluesy, funky-swinging organ combos, with drums and guitar and/or saxophone?

(Note: I see on the Jazzmatazz site that Rhoda Scott has a new Christmas album coming out, with Houston Person, called "The Hammond Organ of Christmas." What a title!)

Edited October 7, 2003 by Tom Storer

[Christiern]

Go back to 1925 and you have Fred Longshaw (along with Louis A) accompanying Bessie Smith on a harmonium. Very effectively, I might add.

BTW Harmoniums were small and inexpensive--perfect for shoe-string rural churches.

[mikeweil]

(Note: I see on the Jazzmatazz site that Rhoda Scott has a new Christmas album coming out, with Houston Person, called "The Hammond Organ of Christmas." What a title!)

Rhoda Scott is bad! Now that may be a jazz christmas album for me to look after ...

Among pre-Jimmy organists, Milt Buckner deserves mention.

If those Jelly Roll organ tracks are available, I's sure like to hear them!!!

[Harold_Z]

Wild Bill Davis and Bill Doggett were using Hammonds (I'm going by sound and photos I've seen). Both of these guys played a pre- Jimmy style that (imho) didn't have the speed or bebop lines that Jimmy bought to the table, although both guys were fine musicians with plenty of chops - just different chops. I think Wild Bill primarily worked in a trio setting with guitar and drums and Bill Doggett had a quartet with Tenor added. Doggett could get plenty greasy and his stuff was marketed by King records as R&B or Rock and Roll more so than Jazz.

[Christiern]

Has anyone mentioned Sir Charles Thompson?

[relyles]

Wild Bill Davis also made several recordings with Johnny Hodges that are worth hearing.

One thing I have noticed about some of the pre-Smith organists I have heard is that it seems like they did not allow the organ to blend in with the band as well. I think this a problem that some organ music may have in general, but when I listen to those Wild Bill Davis/Hodges recordings it seems that Davis' organ can overwhelm all the other musicians. I sometimes get a similar feeling, but not as strongly from Jimmy Smith - although i do love much of his playing. I think that is why I pefer organists like Larry Young and Don Patterson, they seem to interact and support the other musicians in the band as opposed to overpowering them.

Tom, I am sure others may have recommendations, but a young organ player that has consistently impressed me has been Sam Yahel.

Edited October 7, 2003 by relyles

[Tom Storer]

I've heard Yahel with that trio with Joshua Redman and Brian Blade - the music didn't grab me, so I didn't form much of an opinion of Yahel's playing in itself.

Now that I think of it, I also heard an album I liked a lot by - was it Larry Golding? Yes, Larry Golding, with Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart. Very nice! Can't think of the name of it...

Edited October 7, 2003 by Tom Storer

[Joe G]

Larry Goldings, Sam Yahel, and Dan Wall are my three favorites out of the younger cats. For Yahel, check out the album called Trio, with Peter Bernstein and Brian Blade. State of the art IMO, and I prefer that stuff to the Elastic Band w/ Redman. Although Ya-Ya3 was pretty damn good too. Yahel is also on some recent CrissCross dates, one with Ryan Kysor that will probably be smoking. You can do a search for him at their website. Also look there for Peter Bernstein's album Earth Tones, with Goldings.

I'll leave the history of the organ to more qualified individuals.

Paging SoulStream....paging B-3er....

[Jim Alfredson]

The pre-Smith organists have basically been covered. Fats Waller first played jazz on a pipe organ and then also on the Hammond. Dogget was a Hammond man as well as Wild Bill Davis.

So why did everyone play Hammond? I think because it was really the first inexpensive and relatively portable electric organ. The Hammond Co. sold a lot of them to black churches that didn't have the money to afford a real pipe organ so many blacks had their first exposure to the instrument there and transformed it to sound nothing like a pipe organ.

There was a B2 but there was no B1. The lineage is like this: The Model A came first. This looks like a B3 but not as deep (ie, front to back) and has no vibrato or chorus. These were first made in 1935. Then came the BC which used an extended case to fit the new chorus generator in. Also around the same time came the model C, which was the same as a BC but had a church style case (ie, with woodwork that extended all the way to the floor, not spindle legs like the b series). Then the BCV which was just a BC with a vibrato unit installed (usually in the field... ie, on organs already in service) and the CV.

In 1949 the first B2 and C2 organs came around. These are as close to a B3 and C3 as you can get. The one difference is no percussion circuit. The percussion is not a drum machine or anything like that. It's a circuit that takes the signal from the last drawbar and converts it into a "ping" at the front of the note on the top manual. This is an integral part of the Jimmy Smith sound.

The first B3s and C3s were made in 1955. There are no internal speakers in either the B3 or C3 organs. Hammond did start making the A100 series which are a B3 in a more decorative cabinet that DOES have internal speakers. You can also hook up a Leslie to them. Dan Wall plays one.

Jimmy Smith truly did revolutionize the instrument. Before him it was basically a novelty. Wild Bill Davis and Bill Dogget did some nice stuff but the best way to describe their style is "roller-rinky". They liked BIG drawbar settings and BIG chords and BIG accents and to most modern listeners it's going to sound real cheesy.

Jimmy Smith was the first to get away from those drawbar settings and play fast, bop-oriented, single-note lines on the organ with his own drawbar setting that no one had used before (and everyone has copied since). He was also the first to use a combination pedal/left hand technique for his basslines which made them more fluid and allowed him to accent like a real bassist.

McDuff, McGriff, and Holmes learned straight from Jimmy Smith. He taught them directly. I'm not sure about John Patton. Jimmy Smith called Don Patterson the only organist who could keep up with him. Larry Young was the first to break away from the Smith school and approach the instrument from more of a McCoy Tyner direction.

Joey D is a faster, cleaner version of Jimmy Smith. He's a monster player, but more of a stylist, not an innovator. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. He single handedly brought the organ back from near extinction.

Larry Goldings and Sam Yahel are out of the Young camp, although they really sound nothing like Young. I think their approach is the same, though.

Bill Heid is a Patterson and Young disciple (they taught him directly) and should be heard by everyone on this board. He's plays stuff that makes you swear it's Larry Young.

As far as other organs... Hammond, like I said, was the first electronic organ. Others followed quickly but none sounded as good. Hammond started losing ground in the late 60s because there were other manufacturers taking over the home theatre organ market which is where Hammond wanted to be. They never really recognized the people who made their organ so popular which were the rockers, the blues folks, the jazzers and the black churches. They continually marketed the organ to white folks who wanted to play "Tico Tico" at home with nutty, poorly synthesized sounds and rhythm machine accompianment. As such, in 1974 they abandoned the aging tone-wheel design and went to transistorized sound. And thus went out of business.

There are a few records around with organists playing other types of organs. There's a Groove Holmes/Jimmy McGriff duet record from the 70s on Groove Merchant, for instance, where they are playing some Thomas organs I think. Sounds horrible. Nothing could compete with Hammond for a long time... everything sounded extremely weak and cheesy by comparison.

[Joe G]

Don't forget the TURBANATOR!!

[mikeweil]

Yahel is also on some recent CrissCross dates, one with Ryan Kysor that will probably be smoking.

It IS smoking!

p.s. That photo of Jim and the Turbanator is VERY nice!

Edited October 7, 2003 by mikeweil

[Jim Alfredson]

Mike, there's a NEW one that came out last month with Sam Yahel under Kisor's name. Battlecry IS smokin', but I haven't heard the new one yet.

I bet's it just as good, though!

[Shrdlu]

Only recently did I get to hear Fats Waller's twenties recordings on the pipe organ at RCA Victor's Camden, NJ studio. (As you may know, they acquired a disused church auditorium that had a pipe organ - obviously you could not have a pipe organ in a regular studio. Camden is right next to Philly, and it would have been a bit of a pain to have the New York guys travel all the way there for a session, I guess.)

Fats sounds fantastic on the big monster. There is one session with the organ and two horns, on which Fats gets a sound like a big orchestra.

Apparently, there is a delay between the player hitting a key and the note coming out, so it is hard to make pipe organs swing, but Fats was totally in command of it, and swings like crazy.

After those few recordings, Fats did not record on the pipe organ again very much. There was one thirties session with the "Rhythm" at Camden, but only two selections used the organ, one being the classic "Night Wind". If only there were more.

[Soul Stream]

Although Patton was aware of Smith for sure. I don't think he ever got the chance to ever sit down and really study Smith's stuff in any way. My understanding from him was that Ben Dixon and Grant Green were his most influential jazz musicians. In that, he learned from them and others...most notably Lou Donaldson (listen to Charlie Parker is what Lou told Patton all the time) while he was DOING it. And thank god for us. He's really untouched by Smith except for the concept of left hand bass, pedals..and single note lines. Even his basslines are virtually all his own. As a boogie woogie pianist with Lloyd Price and others, I think he just had that natural gift for bass that translated to organ.

Once I was sitting in his apartment listening to that Blue Note comp. "Organ and Soul" with him. I had brought it to show him that cool picture of him on the cover. Anyway,...The Sermon kicked in and Patton listened real hard and exclaimed..."woooow. I wish I had that kind of talent!" Of course I laughed and said..."You DO!!!!"

Anyway, he admired Smith but never studied his stuff other than the odd song or two. Oddly enough "Alfredo" from Crazy Baby is the only song he ever mentioned playing. Although there might have been others.

[Christiern]

As far as I recall, Plaza Sound Studios (where Riverside recorded most of its sessions) had a pipe organ--located above Radio City Music Hall, they were somehow hooked into their organ.

[JSngry]

Can't forget Glenn Hardman, who made that session w/Prez. I thin he played what was then considered jazz organ full time.

[brownie]

The very first jazz organ I heard was being played by Count Basie. Before I ever heard the incredible Fats Waller on the organ sides, there were those 'Paradise Squat' and 'Blues for the Count and Oscar' records. Loved the sound.

Basie kept recording on the organ until much later in his career. There is a version of 'I Surrender Dear' on the Basie and Zoot Pablo album with Basie switching to organ that is a delight.

[EKE BBB]

There is a version of 'I Surrender Dear' on the Basie and Zoot Pablo album with Basie switching to organ that is a delight.

[bertrand]

At the John Patton gig I saw on 8/11/01 at the Fat Cat, NYC, they played 'The Cat' by Lalo Schifrin, which is of course the title track to a Verve Jimmy Smith album.

I had to ask Ronnie Cuber what the tune was - I had never heard the album. I thought they had played a speeded-up 'Rumproller'!

Bertrand.

[Tom Storer]

b3-er, thank you very much for that erudite history! I couldn't have asked for better.

I'm amazed to learn that Hammond went out of business in the 1970's! All those Hammond B3s are like Stradivarius violins? No longer being manufactured? There must be a roaring market for them now... Surely there must be someone somewhere who can start up the equivalent again?

Let me be geeky and ask you to explain some of the terminology. What is:

- "chorus"?

- a drawbar?

- the top manual? (I guess the upper keyboard?)

[Jim Alfredson]

Hammond didn't go out of business in the 70s, they just stopped making the tonewheel based organs like the B3. They switched over to transistors in 1974. I think they went out of business in the 1980s.

The Hammond name (and the Leslie name for that matter) were bought by Suzuki (not the motorcycle company... another Japanese company with the same name) in the 1990s and they started making single manual (manual = keyboard) digital keyboards that were only made to emulate the Hammond B3 type organs.

With Joey D came a resurrgence of the instrument so more and more synth manufacturers got into the act and started making Hammond clones. None of them sound very good, however.

Just recently Hammond-Suzuki started manufacturing a full sized replication of the B3 called the New B3. It is the same size as an old B3 but uses digital technology to create the sound. They also make full sized modern Leslies to go with the organs. Joey D and Tony Monaco play the New B3 on their new joint release.

I haven't played one but I heard from my mentor who got his hands on one at the NAMM show in LA a few years back that it's close but no cigar. The keyboard doesn't feel right and the sound is all right but no where near as ballsy and idiosyncratic as a real B3.

The other HUGE factor is that the New B3 costs a staggering $20,000!!!! It's insane. Only churches or very rich people can afford one.

The market for the old B3s is very much alive and prices have only gone up in the last few years, although they've started to level out. You can get a good condition B3 with a Leslie for about $4000. A mint condition would be about $6000.

They made over 250,000 B3s in it's 20 year run, so there are plenty still out there. And luckily they are a product of what my dad calls "Post War Over-Engineering" so really, if they are properly maintained, they will last forever. But it is kind of scary. Who knows how many will still be operational in 50 or 100 years...

Now for your terms:

Chorus - This is an effect that Hammond devised to "animate" the sound of the organ. One of the biggest complainst about the electric organ is that it's sound is too staid. It's very pure. The chorus circuit in the Hammond organ copies the output and then takes that copy and sends it through a delay line of resistors and capacitors that slightly delays and detunes the sound. They add this to the untouched original sound and you get a chorus effect... ie, the sound has "motion"... it's much more interesting because there isn't just a pure sine wave coming at you. It's like a singer singing a pitch with vibrato.

The invention of the Leslie speaker was another solution to this problem. Don Leslie invented the speaker to simulate the pipes of a real organ. When you're in a church with a pipe orga, the pipes are spread all across the room, sometimes in front of you and behind you or even to either side. As the organist pulls the stops he opens up certain ranks of pipes and the sound comes at you from all over! The Leslie is simpy a pair of rotating speakers that throws the sound out all over the room to try and simulate the pipes, but of course it sounds nothing like that! The sound of the Leslie, however, is way cool!

Drawbar - the drawbar is the way you create sound with a Hammond. Rather than use stops like on a pipe organ Hammond uses drawbars. They are literally what the name implies: A bar that you draw out towards you to add harmonics to the sound. There are nine drawbars per manual (keyboard) and each is tuned to a different harmonic, just like the stops on a real pipe organ. The first drawbar represents the 16 foot pipes, the second the 8 foot pipes, and so on. The drawbars go from 0 to 8 as you pull them out. 0 being no sound and 8 being all the way out (pulling out all the stops!)

For instance, the classic Jimmy Smith lead sound is 888 000 000 with third harmonic percussion on and C3 chorus selected. In other words, the first three drawbars are pulled all the way out and all the rest are all the way in.

Above is a picture from an original manual that came with most Hammond that taught you how to use the drawbars. Very simple, really. You just pull them in and out until you get a sound you like.

[Tom Storer]

This is fascinating.

Here's another naive question: why do Hammonds (or pipe organs, for that matter) have two keyboards (uh, manuals)? I note in the diagram you included that each manual has its own drawbars, so I guess you could choose a different sound for the same note. Are the two manuals in different registers completely or is there overlap?

Thanks again for your explanations. You should write a book!

[Shrdlu]

Yeah, this is all very interesting!

I was going to ask you to re-post the Jimmy Smith settings, Jim; you put them on the old BN board, but ...

An obvious question is: can you still get parts for the B3, or do you have to get custom-made parts? I suppose, as with a vintage car, you could get another purely for parts.