[Dixielandjazz] Organs in Jazz - Was Fats Waller first?

[Stephen Barbone]

List mates:

Has anybody got those early Fats Waller records with him on organ? See
article below for reference to Fats' learning his keyboard artistry on
this instrument.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

December 1, 2002 New York Times

Bach Aside, the Organ Swings Again

By BEN WALTZER


      THE singular sound of the organ is deeply connected to the
American soul. From churches to ballparks, funeral homes to nightclubs,
it underscores both the sacred and profane. In the jazz world, however,
the organ — specifically, the Hammond or electric organ — has been
viewed by some as less than serious because of its utility: music played
to get a groove on hasn't always qualified as high art in the critics'
circle.

But lately the organ has been experiencing a resurgence and finding new
respect. Groups like Soulive and Medeski, Martin and Wood are
repopularizing the instrument. Rappers are sampling it. The trumpeter
Roy Hargrove recently fronted an organ group, and new recordings by the
saxophonist Joshua Redman and the keyboardist Larry Goldings have recast
the instrument's role in today's jazz. Veterans are also getting their
due. This week the Iridium in Manhattan presents a "Hammond B3 Organ
Blowout" with Jimmy McGriff and Dr. Lonnie Smith performing in tandem.
Meanwhile, Jazz at Lincoln Center will present "Soul Call," with Reuben
Wilson and the Masters of Groove.

The organ's increasing visibility is a result of many factors within
jazz and beyond it. Because the organ straddles the borders between
musical worlds, its sound suggests them all. That quality gives
organists a wealth of material to draw on and the means to connect with
diverse audiences. Also, more practically, synthesizers and portable
digital organs have enabled a generation of keyboardists to explore the
organ's sound and mechanics before graduating to the real thing.

In the early 90's, Blue Note, the label that had helped popularize
organ-heavy soul jazz in the 60's, shrewdly allowed a British acid jazz
group, Us3, to sample its records freely. The group's subsequent
commercial success, and that of others like Tribe Called Quest and De La
Soul, funneled Blue Note's 60's sound into the youth market, creating a
new audience and boosting the careers of the music's originators, like
Mr. Wilson and Mr. Smith.

"Sampling has brought a newfound respect for old records in general,"
said Mr. Goldings, 34, leader of an organ trio under his name that's one
of the most creative in jazz. "The uniqueness of the sound of the organ
can't be duplicated. Also, the element of blues is in its sound, which
people can relate to even if they don't know anything about jazz. It's
accessible. People respond to it."

The organ was first used in jazz in the 20's by the pianist Thomas
(Fats) Waller, who honed his skills accompanying silent films on a
Wurlitzer theater organ designed to mimic an orchestra. On historic
early recordings, Waller struggles to make a church organ with 2,000
pipes respond to a pianist's touch; magically, he makes the behemoth
swing.

In 1935, Laurens Hammond, an inventor and clockmaker, introduced the
first Hammond electric organ. Compared with the pipe organ, his was
portable (though just barely: it weighed more than 400 pounds) and cost
a fraction of the price. Several different models were produced over the
years, but the B3 became standard. (Hammond's company stopped making the
B3 in 1975 and now produces a digital version.)

Encased in a walnut console, the handmade B3 had two keyboards, each
with a series of drawbars, or stops, which determined timbre. It also
had two octaves of foot pedals, a volume pedal and adjustable chorus,
percussion and vibrato effects. Organists could play bass lines and
control volume with their feet, play accompanying harmonies with the
left hand and improvise with the right while continuously orchestrating
an unlimited range of expressive possibilities. The B3, whose
distinctive sound emanated from a set of tone wheels, fully achieved its
signature warmth with the addition of a rotating Leslie speaker, which
produced a tremolo effect. One of the first to use a Hammond in jazz was
(Wild) Bill Davis.

Originally a pianist and big-band arranger, Davis founded the first jazz
organ trio with a guitarist and drummer, which became standard
instrumentation, often augmented by a tenor saxophonist. His monumental
sound was modeled on the punch and roar of a big band and influenced
many others, including Milt Buckner, Shirley Scott, Sarah McLawler and
Bill Doggett, whose 1956 hit "Honky Tonk" pointed the way toward rock'n'
roll. It also inspired Jimmy Smith, a young pianist and bassist from
Norristown, Pa., to take up the organ.

Like turning a rainbow into a laser beam, Mr. Smith came up with
distinct drawbar settings that streamlined the orchestral sound that
Davis had popularized. These settings better suited Mr. Smith's incisive
improvisations, which drew upon the musical vocabularies of saxophonists
like Charlie Parker, Arnett Cobb and Eddie (Lockjaw) Davis. Mr. Smith's
experience as a bassist facilitated the rhythmic drive and harmonic
subtlety he achieved with the organ's foot pedals. And enthralled by the
vibraphonist Milt Jackson's vibrato effects, he used the volume pedal to
mimic his idol. His Blue Note records, including "Back at the Chicken
Shack" and "The Sermon," cemented his reputation as the creator of the
modern jazz organ conception and influenced others like Jack McDuff,
Charles Earland and recently Joey DeFrancesco, who as a teenage phenom
in the mid-80's helped resuscitate the once robust — and commercially
successful — jazz organ tradition.

Despite its popularity in the late 50's and 60's, the jazz organ
phenomenon was largely ignored by the music press. "The genre was
undervalued because it wasn't dramatically avant-garde; it was
unpretentious," said Tony Outhwaite, author of a forthcoming book of
jazz organ history entitled
"Organ Rooms: The Organ Jazz of America's Inner Cities." "Organists just
sat down and swung the blues night after night."

Audiences in organ rooms were tough. A musician's job was to sense what
the audience wanted to hear and then play it. "We'd see the people and
feel them out," said Mr. McGriff, 66, the Philadelphia-born blues
organist whose new album, "McGriff Avenue," was released recently.
"Playing for an audience is like trying to romance a woman. You listen
to her first so you'll have a better idea of what to say."

But others, like Larry Young, who died of pneumonia at 37 in 1978, were
determined to stretch out musically. On his classic Blue Note 1965
record, "Unity," he can be heard working in the highly interactive,
exploratory musical language of 60's small-group acoustic jazz. His
absorption of the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and his later
experience with fusion and rock, make him an important link to young
organists today.

Today, a new generation of organists are taking the developments in jazz
and other music and filtering them through their instruments and
ensembles. On his latest record, "Sweet Science," Mr. Goldings evokes an
almost cinematic soundscape to envelop and cushion improvisation.

"I love to orchestrate on the organ," he said. "Joe Zawinul" — a
co-founder of Weather Report — "who I don't think ever played the organ,
is a model for me. He was an orchestra with synthesizers."

"And sonically, I like what John Medeski does," Mr. Goldings added.
"He's given me ideas about getting away from the classic Jimmy Smith
influence and just investigating textures and sounds."

Sam Yahel, 31, is another leading keyboardist now touring with Joshua
Redman. The two began playing together with the drummer Brian Blade
three years ago at Smalls, the now famous incubator of fresh jazz talent
in Greenwich Village. Their new CD's, "Yaya3" and "Elastic," capture
different aspects of their collective musical vision.

For Mr. Redman, " `Yaya3' represents the sound of the band as it
developed under Mr. Yahel's leadership. " `Elastic' is more my record,"
he said. "The organ is one of many keyboard instruments, and from a
stylistic and sonic standpoint, it's more groove-based and electric."

Mr. Yahel said he loved the "deep, soulful tradition" of the Hammond.
"But there's room to explore other things," he went on. "I remember
studying Freddie Hubbard's trumpet playing, which works great on the
organ because you can sustain notes and cut through in a room like a
trumpeter."

Keith Jarrett's "contrapuntal harmonic approach" also transfers well to
the organ, Mr. Yahel added. "What I'm trying to do is bring influences
that have nothing to do with the organ into its world."

The organ, he said, "is the first synthesizer, a great bridge between
acoustic and electronic music."

. "It has a beautiful acoustic quality — it's soulful, it's wooden, it
just speaks — but it's also got an electric quality, too. The fun thing
is to try to tap into both."