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No Leslie

Mine was a spinet. I can't remember the letter name, perhaps L-something, not sure.

Ed

I really enjoyed that, Riddler. Brings back good memories, and I love that Hammond sound.

Well, here's my version. I'm not nearly as fast as Ethel Smith, but had a lot of fun with it. Have a couple of "sticky keys" with this rainy/humid weather here, too. I recorded this on my Roland.. I'm not set up to record with my old Conn organ. My feet tell me they miss playing the pedals. lol

TICO TICO

Ethel Ed and Elssa and Tico-Tico Tico-Tico Tico-Tico This is becoming another themed recital. So many wonderful performances of this song.

Ed and Elssa you play so well, past and present (I think Elssa also did another version of this years ago)-- not even primitive recording methods or sticky keys can subtract from the enjoyments of your performances.

Great performance Elssa! Would have liked to see you do it on the real organ with the swell pedal.

Some really impressive Hammond organ playing here. Such variety of sounds coming out of the instrument and such great use of dynamics. This is no small deal to do.

Ed - that was really fun! I still have a little cassette player, too, and listen to old tapes while I'm folding laundry And now I can listen to your old tapes, too! I love the sauciness here

Cathy

Elssa, Way to Tico! I know what you mean about the pedals, once you get used to playing with them, things never seem right without them.

Jazzwee, I must admit I've never heard a Hammond played quite like Corey Henry plays it! Super-quick on the drawbars! Really swings. Though I must say - he's not too subtle with his cues to his drummer. In a bygone era, Elssa and I used to be fans of an organist named Bill Irwin, he was quick at registration changes too; made you feel like you were listening to a whole orchestra.

Cathy, saucy, yes, but ya gotta admit - we are too restrained in this thread. All these words, not a single organ joke! JW should be grateful bigtime.

Ed

It's a month now of practicing the organ on my Nord Electro and this is where i am now.

All the Things You Are Improv
https://app.box.com/s/dn05vn9gbqe47242nugi

A little more Ethel Smith: Wish I could play the glissandos like her!

I have an old cassette recording from a little recital I played for a local organ club group about 30 years ago. I'm playing my Conn organ with pedals, and the sound quality is really terrible, but just reminds me how much fun I had back then:

CUMANA: https://app.box.com/shared/71li2cu37k

BRAZIL: https://app.box.com/shared/t4lirac9yd


Ed/Riddler, I still have a book or two of Bill Irwin's somewhere. He was really good.

There was another great electric/theater organist named Rosa Rio. She lived to age 107 and was performing on the organ right up to the end.

I didn't even think of the term "pulling out all the stops" as referring to organ. Makes sense now

She actually was only 3 weeks shy of 108 when she died. Her last professional performance was only a few months before that and she practiced up to the day she died, believing there'd be another one.

Skitch Henderson said he didn't know of anyone else who could improvise for the organ the way she could. Here is a more extensive interview with her where she talks about that and her over 90-year career and the history of broadcasting. She is 100 in the interview but barely seems 70 and I was tempted to email her husband (still alive at 94) to ask him which hand cream she used. Her hands seem so amazingly young. Check it out.

[video:youtube][video:google]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifiPKj0McPw[/video]

That's a wonderful clip! I really love it at the very end where she plays "Everything's Coming Up Rosa".

I actually heard her play live back in the late 1980s.. My grandmother (my mom's mom) in Bridgeport, CT, who also played theater organ, was about the same age as Rosa and was acquainted with her. My family and I went to hear Rosa play in Shelton,CT, and she was amazing!

www.TheatreOrgans.com/cvtos

SHELTON, CONNECTICUT

The 3/13 Austin Opus 1512 organ was originally installed in the Allyn Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut in 1927. The 1938 hurricane did substantial damage to it, flooding the chambers, smashing the pipes and technically making the instrument inoperable..

Twenty-one years later, in 1959, Allen Miller, while making a survey of theatre organs in Connecticut, discovered this organ, and with the help of a friend was able to get it in working condition by 1960.

Shortly after this, the Connecticut Valley Theatre Organ Society was founded, and through an agreement between Mr. Miller and the Allyn Theatre, concerts and practice sessions were allowed when the theatre was not being used. Additionally, the organ was promised to CVTOS in the event the theatre was closed or demolished.

The Allyn Theatre closed in October 1969, and the organ was dismantled and moved to a machine shop in Manchester, Ct. From there it was moved to a vacant store in Seymour, and later to a closed school building in Shelton.

During these years a new high school was being built in Shelton, and an agreement was made with the city whereby space would be allocated for the chambers and a storage crib for the organ console. In exchange CVTOS would donate the organ to the city and would rebuild, install and maintain it at no charge.

The premier concert for this organ was held on January 25, 1986, and it is the only theatre organ installed in a public high school in Connecticut. Rosa Rio, famous for playing for the silent movies and later radio shows, lived in Shelton and was a frequent performer on this organ.

Great story, Elssa, and one that ended very happily for those high school students. Imagine, being able to hear a concert by a master of a dying art and have a beautiful colorful artifact of American Musical theater history like that at your finger tips.

I had a feeling you would have seen her play and maybe even meet her. My grandmother probably saw her too and might have even known her (she knew Ethel Waters). Like Rosa, she was from the South, was born around the same time, and she played organ and piano from the time she was a child.

I just can't get over how well Rosa looked and how energetic she was in that video you posted (at age 100). Not to disparage the piano in any way, but I bet her playing the organ, which is a full-body workout with the pedals, had something to do with it.

Thanks, Riddler! I never learned to do the real fancy footwork like Ethel and Rosa on electric organ but still had a lot of fun with the pedals.. I could do a pretty good walking bass back then. Do you still play organ? You sounded wonderful in your recording!

Elssa and Ed, please talk more about how you learned organ and trials and tribulations related to that. Did you have a teacher? How did they teach it vs. piano?

I was blessed with some great organ teachers over the years back then.

Bob Maidhof: I took 2-3 years of lessons with him when I was a teen. He was only about 5 years older than me but was already the regular organist at Radio City Music Hall, so he had great advice on playing theater style organ music! He eventually moved to NJ. He taught me things like walking bass with the pedals (Mack the Knife), as well as lots of wonderful show tunes and Latin rhythm patterns - just about everything!

http://www.gstos.org/BobMaidhof.htm

Ross Carnegie: Another wonderful teacher, more jazzy and into "modern harmony". Ross played the Hammond and used to take it with him to his gigs with his band. He could play organ and piano equally well! I loved the way he sometimes combined classical themes with the standards. A unique and extraordinary musician/teacher:

http://rosscarnegiepianostudio.com/

http://rosscarnegiepianostudio.com/audio1.html

http://rosscarnegiepianostudio.com/biography.html

http://rosscarnegiepianostudio.com/slideshow/gallery.html

Elssa, Cumana and Brazil - I used to love to play them on the organ. There are some songs that just work.

I had to get rid of the Hammond sometime in the 1990s. Now I have a Yamaha DP.

JW, I took lessons very briefly, less than a year, but they were intense. My teacher was an organist at a local nightclub. He started out as an accordion player, adapted to organ as an adult. His main claim to fame was that he had played for Stalin at Potsdam! Anyway, he was a very structured teacher - every week he gave me a new scale, a new arpeggio, a new rhythmic pattern, and a new set of chords, a new page from Hannon for the Accordion, as well as a lead sheet of a song to work on. As I said, the lessons did not last long because I was transferred overseas; but they were invaluable because - what I learned was - how to learn!

I only remember him emphasizing a few specifics re the difference between organ and piano - basic stuff like: don't pound, don't play chords so low on the keyboard, stop playing the piano on the organ, press don't strike, practice both legato and staccato.

Later, I got a bunch of Bill Irwin books; they were quite good for learning how to integrate LH and foot pedals to make accompaniment patterns, walking bass patterns, stuff like that.

Also, I think I learned a lot by listening and imitating.

I don't think I ever had any organized instruction re registration changes, just learned about all that by messing around.



Ed