In Praise of the Hulking 300 lb Beast

A celebration of the Hammond B-3 organ in its many manifestations

You flick on the beast and it rumbles to life. It breathes. Its massive silhouette — “as distinctive as the flaring fans of a ‘60 Coupe de Ville,” as Keyboard magazine senior writer Robert Doershuk once put it — encompasses 300 pounds of musical beef (400 when you add in the pedal board and bench). Add another 100 pounds or so for the Leslie speakers and it’s really a 500 lb beast. So moving it around is like schlepping a Sub-Zero refrigerator.

I first encountered the beast in person as a little kid through my Uncle Tom Garrison, a kindly gentleman on my mother’s side of the family who lived out in rustic Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin and was, in fact, a Hammond organ salesman. Uncle Tom would give us demonstrations of what his Hammond could do, pointing out its two 61-note keyboards, four sets of nine drawbars, vibrato dial and 96 tone wheels inside that were powered by an actual oil-lube motor. And I always marveled at the bass foot pedals (which Uncle Tom always played with his shoes off) as well as the cheesy-sounding Rhythm II beat box that was attached to the hulking anachronism.

The sound of Hammond B-3 organ underscored my rock youth in tunes like Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965), The Young Rascals’ “Good Lovin’” (1966), The Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’” (1966) and “I’m a Man” (1967), Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (1967), Sly Stone’s “Dance to the Music,” Deep Purple’s “Hush,” Steppenwolf’s 1968 hits “Born To Be Wild” and “Magic Carpet Ride,” the Allman Brothers 1969 hit, “Tied to the Whipping Post.” Going back even further, I have distinct memories of my older brother Tom playing Dave “Baby” Cortez’s 1959 hit single, “The Happy Organ.” I was five at the time and that may have been when the sound of Hammond B-3 organ first snuck into my consciousness. And the theme song from the 1960 CBS tv show, Henry Mancini’s “Mr. Lucky,” was yet another early organ-fueled number that must’ve fueled my young imagination in ways I couldn’t have even known then (I was six).

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A real breakthrough for me came with the October 1968 release of Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland. Of course, I had already been over the moon about his 1967 debut, Are You Experienced (released that summer, and the first album I ever bought with my own money) and his followup, Axis: Bold As Love (released on Dec. 1 of that same year). But what set Electric Ladyland apart from those two groundbreaking releases was the use of Hammond B-3 organ (played by Steve Winwood of the aforementioned Spencer Davis Group) on the slow grinding blues jam, “Voodoo Chile,” which at nearly 15 minutes was Jimi’s longest studio recording.

Shortly after, I heard strains of “Night Train” from Further Adventures of Jimmy and Wes by Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery wafting through some guy’s car down at the Alternate Site, a natural green alcove located directly across from McKinley Beach on Lake Michigan where hippies congregated on weekends to attend free rock concerts. That blew my mind, as did “The Cooker” from George Benson’s 1966 album, The Cookbook, which featured Lonnie Smith on Hammond B-3 organ (before he began wearing turbans and self identifying at Dr. Lonnie Smith.

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From there I delved deeply into the whole lineage of organ jazz groups, from Brother Jack McDuff’s 1969 Prestige compilation, Steppin’ Out, which featured Benson on a monstrously killing version of the slow blues “Our Miss Brooks” as well as Pat Martino on “Chicken Feet,” Grant Green on “Godiva Brown” and Kenny Burrell (under the hip pseudonym K.B. Groovington) on “Shaky” and “Moody McDuff.”

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After moving to New York in 1980, I had a wealth of B-3 lounges to choose from, including Dude’s Lounge, The Lickety Split, The Lenox Lounge and Showman’s in Harlem as well as the funky Savoy (formerly a biker’s bar) on 40th Street near Port Authority, where Adam Scone held forth on Hammond B3 organ, often alongside drumming great Jimmy Cobb.

By the late ‘80s, organist Larry Goldings began playing a regular Thursday night gig with guitarist Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart up at Augie’s on 106th & Broadway. That club near Columbia University would later close in 1998 before transforming a year later into Smoke, co-owned by Paul Stache and Frank Christopher, who both previously worked at Augie's as bartenders. Nearly 27 years later, Smoke remains the premier organ group club in New York City. And Goldings has emerged as one of the premier organists on the scene today for his trio work with Bernstein and Stewart (they have released a dozen recordings since 1991’s Intimacy of the Blues (the latest being 2022’s Perpetual Pendulum) as well as past endeavors like 2006’s Suadades, a powerhouse Tony Williams Lifetime tribute featuring guitarist John Scofield and drummer Jack DeJohnette, with Goldings assuming the Larry Young role on organ) and more recent projects like his funk band Scary Goldings (featuring Sco as a guest).

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Over the years I got to interview organ greats like Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff and Dr. Lonnie Smith. I attended Joey DeFrancesco’s “coming out” party in 1993 at The Five Spot featuring an all-star crew of saxophonists in Illinois Jacquet, Grover Washington, Jr., Kirk Whalum, and Houston Person, and got to interview Joey numerous times over the years for feature stories and liner notes. I’ve gone back into the archives to appreciate such past greats as Big John Patton, Charles Earland, Reuben Wilson, Don Patterson, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Baby Face Willette, Winston Walls, Shirley Scott, Rhoda Scott, Melvin Rhyne and Gene Ludwig. And I’ve also discovered newer talents like Brian Charrette, Pat Bianchi, Mike LeDonne, Tony Monaco, Sam Yahel, Jared Gold, Chris Foreman, Gregory Lewis, Barbara Dennerlein, Delvon LaMarr and the late Akiko Tsuruga. Oh yeah, and John Medeski, who as co-founding member of jamband godfathers Medeski, Martin & Wood also collaborated with Scofield on 2006’s Au Go Go.

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