Here in glorious MONO on VINYL ( never mind thumbnail, it's not MY LP's image) is an example of what great Hammond organ playing is all about. The Hammond B3 is so well known as a jazz organ and an organ for churches that it is often forgotten that the Hammond sound for popular standards was developed as soon as the organ was introduced in 1935. The idea of one person at an organ replacing an orchestra was a concept carried out by the theater pipe organ two decades before the Hammond was invented, but for obvious reasons you couldn't take a pipe organ from gig to gig. You could carry a relatively small Hammond organ though, and from this portability was born a whole new approach to filling up a musical space with so many of the elements that only a live orchestra could carry out previous to this. So, if you are fairly new to the Hammond organ, or if you simply have overlooked others ways that it can be played because say, you never considered listening to what /you considered/ to be elevator music, then by all means have another listen. You might just find yourself loving it! In fact the Hammond can be a nice gateway into other orchestral approaches to music, even entire eras of music! I love the popular band orchestras of the 30's and it was the listening to Hammond organ records like this one that helped me explore these other avenues of music. I love the The Fabulous Five's version of ' East Of The Sun And West Of The Moon '. It's a song that sounds so much better in the warmer 1930's Pre-Swing ballad style. My favorite version is- Chick Bullock East of the Sun (1935) on Youtube, although listed as 36' for what I believe is the studio version. Maybe I will upload it as well:) The organ helps develop your ear so that you /can/ listen to many types of music and hear it for more than some stereotypical name like elevator music. The better you become at listening the more stereotypes associated with music just fall away. There is a paradox though. The more you focus on listening to become a better listener, the less you find you need to...and then it's just beautiful:)

• published: 17 Jan 2014
• views: 49