Pipe Organ and early Jazz keyboardists
When one thinks of Jazz Organ, Jimmy Smith Wailing at the Hammond b-3 immediately comes to mind. The Hammond organ wasn’t manufactured until 1935, and many jazz keyboard pioneers found employment in churches and movie theaters especially during the Silent film era. Mary Lou Williams, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Count Basie and possibly James P. Johnson* come to mind. The Organ at W.C. Handy’s birthplace a log cabin in Florence, Alabama William Christopher Handy studied organ and music theory at an early age. He also played organ in his father's church, Florence's Greater St. Paul A.M.E. church Mary Lou Williams, At the age of 3, after the family moved to Pittsburgh, (she) began playing spirituals and ragtime on a pump organ while sitting on her mother's knee. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/30/obituaries/mary-lou-williams-a-jazz-great-dies.html?pagewanted=all Earl Hines studied classical piano early in life but was such a quick study he was playing t