Jim Alfredson

2.1%. Not too shabby!

Did y'all chase him off, too? Haven't seen him on here in awhile. No one chased me off. I have been playing and listening (to) jazz, rather than "discussing" it here. I was talking about member Cooltrane. A youngin' like yourself...

I hate it when I'm playing with my organ and I forget to stop the fudge licks.

Did y'all chase him off, too? Haven't seen him on here in awhile. I vote for Jazzland.

Is that KINNY CHESNIY?

I worry. I'm only half-joking.

There are many more reason to hate Vanilla Fudge, but that's a good one.

Speaking of organ finds, my dream rig was on eBay last spring. A guy in Chicago was selling a beautiful 1954 Hammond B2 with a Leslie 21H and a Leslie 31H for only $2000. I think the auction ended at just under $2100. Of course, I didn't have the money. I later met a cat at a gig who had actually went to Chicago to play that organ because he was thinking about buying it and he said it was gorgeous.

Man, I am too honest. My dad, who is a piano technician, got this call about 2 summers ago from someone who bought a house and moved in only to find an organ in the basement. The previous owner, who was now in a home for the elderly, told them they could keep it. So this guy called my dad to ask if it was worth anything. My dad gives him my number and my wife go over there to look at it. Sitting in this guys basement, in the exact spot that it was delivered and dropped off almost 50 years before, is a MINT condition 1956 dark cherry B3 with matching cabinet. I mean absolutely MINT. No scratches anywhere. No marks on the pedals, no marks on the bench, NOTHING. It looked like it came right off the showroom floor. The guy had no idea what it was worth. It played beautifully, too. Gorgeous tone, even though the Hammond cabinet. But I looked at him and his wife and their two young kids (probably 2 and 4 years old) and thought to myself, "This guy just bought a house, has two kids and wife, two cars, he probably needs the money." So I told him what it was really worth. I could've just as easily said, "Ah, they ain't worth anything. The tubes are worth some money to guitar players. I'll give you $200 for it and haul it out for you." But I didn't...

If you dig guitar then you owe it to yourself to hear Joe G.

You need to remedy that. Please see this thread... CLICK ME!

It's getting even scarier now that my wife is on disability. She's the main bread winner but she's taking home less than I make now and if we can't get this figured out and she can't go back to work, then what? I'll be getting a real job, that's what. Unless Organissimo suddenly becomes the next Soulive or something, but I ain't holding my breath.

And I should add that playing five nights in a row at different venues, much less at the same venue, is totally out of the question now.

I'm basically averaging per night what my dad was averaging back when he was a full-time musician in the 1970s. And no, that's not adjusted for inflation, that's real dollars. My dad was making $100 per night five nights a week at Sammy's Lounge here in Lansing in the late 70s/early 80s before getting out of the music business and that's basically what I take home per night. Ridiculous.

Joe, what about the dude during the last set that started setting up his laptop and all this equipment on the right side of my Hammond organ. He's plugging all this shit in, fiddling with this and that, and right in the middle of a tune stares at me expectedly. I avoid eye contact until the end of the tune and then politely say, "Can I help you?" "Hey man, can I take a board feed and record you guys into my laptop?" "Um... what for?" "Well, I master it and then burn CDs to hand out to kids in Kalamazoo." "Uh... yeah. I'd rather you didn't." WTF?! Yeah, just record our music (we play a lot of originals) and give the shit out to whoever. Wacky.

I'm sure they want a small fortune for it... and I'm sure they got it for nothing as a trade-in for some new digital piece of crap.

That's why its beneficial to learn how to do it yourself! That's what I've done. But my organ tech is a old friend of my dads, so he shares his knowledge with me.

Check out our real homepage at www.organissimo.og There are music samples on there.

Yep, exactly like that.

If he was talking about the vibrato scanner, it doesn't get sticky. It'll oxidize and needs to be cleaned since the little slivers of oxidized metal will prevent it from making good connections and the vibrato/chorus will "motorboat"... in other words, it'll sound very choppy and thick.

A little bit of both for me. I had some Jimmy on vinyl and on CD. The hardest part is going to be hearing the bass lines, since they can get lost in the mix. That's why the DVD will probably really help you out. I didn't understand organ bass lines until I was physically shown what to do by my mentor and also by Dr. Lonnie Smith after a gig of his. He was kind enough to show me how the left hand and the pedals go together.

The manual isn't going to tell you much. They were written from a "home theatre" organ perspective which means they will not tell you how to play like or get the Jimmy Smith sound. You're better off asking here and doing searches on the internet. There are sites that talk about how to start it, maintenance, the whole she-bang. I'd get the DVD. Sorta! Except the internal speakers don't rotate, obviously. Is the vibrato board actually out of the organ? I'm not really understanding this question. You can use a vacuum on the organ, as long as you're careful. Yes. Probably! Actually, I'll do it for you. Oil once a year by putting about 10 drops per oil reserve. The tech can show you this. Ask him about oiling. He may tell you to oil it more or less but one year is the standard.

I think the whole NBA learned a lesson. But unfortunately both the Pistons and the Pacers are going to be stigmatized by the refs for a long time. In last nights game they were handing out technical fouls like they were going out of style. They gave one to Reggie in the first few minutes of the first quarter for nothing.

"Crazy Baby" is one of my favorites. I also like the "Standards" compilation that came out a few years ago. Some really mellow, melodic playing by Kenny Burrell and Jimmy on that one.

Double-yeah. Funky as hell. I've been listening to this one non-stop for about a month.