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 the organ at church before he began playing jazz in his teens. http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/arts-entertainment-living/get-rhythm/item/32640-pittsburgh-jazz-legends-1-earl-fatha-hines

Fats Waller came from a very musical family—his grandfather was an accomplished violinist and his mother was the organist of his family’s church.  His first exposure to music was in the form of church hymns and organ music, an instrument he was taught to play by his mother and the church musical director. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/waller-thomas-wright-fats-1904-1943.

Abyssinian Baptist church founded as NY's first African-American Baptist Church in 1808 worshiped in several places before building the present church structure. Around 1914 at about ten years of age Waller would play organ at Abyssinian Baptist church which was then located at 242 West 40th Street, not its present address on 138^th street.  The Abyssinian’s main sanctuary (on) 138^th street originally had a massive Möller Inc. – Opus 3516 (1923) Electro-pneumatic action 3 manual, 27 register, 24 stop, 24 rank organ. In 1938 the Wicks Organ co. installed a Direct-Electric ® action 2 manual, 5 ranks Opus 1843 Organ in the chapel. I came across a letter to *James P. Johnson dated March 2^nd 1937 from Wicks.

James Price Johnson personal papers, 1921-1955, Posthumous  The Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University.

Did James P. Johnson ever play there? Abyssinian Baptist church was an important location for non-secular music in the Harlem Renaissance, and remains a center for the Harlem gospel tradition… Among many important events there, the church conducted the funeral of "The Father of Blues," W.C. Handy in 1958. http://nyc-architecture.com/HAR/HAR054.htm

In his teens Fat’s became organist at Harlem’s Lincoln Theater. The Lincoln had its own stock company of black actors, but earned its greatest fame in the 1920s, when it presented black vaudeville, including such headliners as Bessie Smith, Florence Mills, and Ethel Waters. For a time, the very young Fats Waller was its resident organist.

Since the 1960s, the Lincoln has been home to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Although there have been decorative changes, “much of the structure remains intact, notwithstanding the tiled, 60s-era facade and dropped ceilings”, David Freeland reports in the NYP story. “A sturdy rectangular proscenium, richly brocaded in lovely floral patterns, dominates the front interior, while the original sloping floor is steep enough to make first-timers wobble. Best of all, the theater’s boxes were never removed, and their gentle, curving lines add delicacy to a space that appears larger than it really is”. Cinematreasures

Fats' (Waller) first radio broadcast was in 1923 at age 19 from the Fox Terminal Theatre in Newark, NJ over a local Newark station, playing a 3 Manual/17 Rank, MOLLER PIPE ORGAN Opus 2740.

Fox Terminal Theatre in Newark, NJ in 1923.

Billy Taylor: When I was 10 or 11 years old, Fats Waller came to the Lincoln Theater (Washington DC), where he played the organ and piano. .Fats-Waller He was playing organ out in the middle of the audience so I could see his feet moving on the pedals. After the show, I went backstage. By this time I had been listening to his records. He was bigger than life. Literally. He was a huge guy. As I’m standing backstage, Fats passed by with his entourage, and I just stared at him. I didn’t have nerve enough to say anything. I was in awe. He was one of my idols. He walked right by me and I just stood there. www.jazzwax.com/2009/04/interview-billy-Taylor-part-1.html 

Waller was the first musician to record jazz on the pipe organ. Victor BVE-36773, Recording Date, 11/17/1926, St. Louis blues, Fats Waller, Pipe organ solo.

Victor, BVE-38044, Recording Date, 5/20/1927, Sugar, Fats Waller, Pipe organ solo Discography of American Historical Recordings

This is a picture of the Pipe Organ in Victor Church Studio 1a

New York Times jazz critic John S. Wilson describes the moment in Paris in 1932 when Fats “climbed up into the organ loft of the Cathedral of Notre Dame with Marcel Dupré, the cathedral’s organist.” Fats is quoted saying, “First Mr. Dupré played the God-box and then I played the God-box.” There seems to be some debate about whether Waller played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue or his own “Honeysuckle Rose.”

http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2014/05/21/the-common-fate-of-all-things-rare-or-fats-wallers-last-ride/

COUNT BASIE SEXTET - K. C. Organ Blues

Count Basie: Basie learned organ from Fats Waller and had a short career as the silent film accompanist The Eblon theater Kansas City.

The Eblon featured first-run films accompanied by an orchestra directed by Ragtime Piano Legend James Scott. In 1928, the management replaced the orchestra with a massive pipe organ. Young Bill Basie newly arrived in Kansas City, played the new and expensive ($15,000) Wicks organ at the Eblon. In 1933, the Eblon was converted to the Cherry Blossom Club, a swank nightclub where Basie first became a bandleader. One O'Clock Jump: The Unforgettable History of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils By Douglas Henry Daniels

Basie played the organ for services at the Centennial United Methodist Church, Kansas City, Missouri in 1934 and 1935 (the “Mother” of all African American United Methodist Churches in Kansas City, Missouri) where Bennie Moten’s funeral was held. Bennie Moten's funeral was the largest Kansas City had witnessed in twenty years. Luck’s In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot Lips Page Todd Bryant Weeks

Organist Reggie Watkins plays "Li'l Darling" on the organ Basie played Wurlitzer Opus: 1867, Style: SCH40, Model: A. It is in its original location and is un-altered. At The Historic Centennial United Methodist Church, 1834 Woodland Ave. Kansas City, Missouri.

Ebenezer Baptist Church, Chicago

Thomas Andrew Dorsey:

Thomas Andrew Dorsey, born in Villa Rica, Georgia in 1899, showed music promise as a young child. Dorsey’s mother Etta was responsible for his early musical development because she was an organist at the church. Although he is primarily known as a composer and pianist, must have played the organ as music director at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church and Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago.

Prior to working in churches, Dorsey put together the "Wild Cats Jazz Band" to play for Ma Rainey in 1925.

Norman W. Spaulding, 65, a former Chicago disc jockey and public relations executive said:

Chicago’s Black churches were a training ground and concert hall for religious singers. The churches were constantly holding musical programs and vying with each other in choir contests. Middle-class churches and lower-class churches featured quite different musical styles. The middle-class churches, modeling themselves after white Protestant churches, developed a quieter style of singing hymns. From the turn of the century, there was a continuing clamor by Black pastors against the growing world of sin and entertainment in Chicago’s Black community For insight into the parochial attitudes toward gospel music in the 1940s, consult Katherine Lucille Small’s 1949 Master’s Thesis on “Influence of Gospel Songs on the Negro Church.” John Work’s 1949 article on “Changing Patterns in Negro Folk Songs” also reveals attitudes of the people about the displacement of the spiritual by hymns, arranged spirituals, and gospel music (known as “Dorseys”). Norman Spaulding, "History of Black Oriented Radio in Chicago, 1929-1963" (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Urbana, 1981)