Results for "organ, Hammond B3"

Big John Patton

Born: July 12, 1935

Big John Patton was born July 12, 1935 in Kansas City, Missouri. A self-taught musician, he started playing the piano in 1948 and landed his first big gig touring with R&B sensation Lloyd Price from 1954-1959. Upon his arrival in New York, around 1960, Patton began making the transition from piano to organ. Throughout the 1960's he recorded extensively for Blue Note Records as a leader and sideman, most notably with Grant Green and Lou Donaldson. His music evolved to incorporate elements of modal and free jazz, without ever losing the basic, earthy groove that he brought to it from the beginning. He wrote some organ jazz classics such as "Funky Mama" and "The Yodel." His music will be remembered fondly by musicians and fans

Don Patterson

Born: July 22, 1936

Inspired to switch from piano to organ by Jimmy Smith, Don Patterson was one of the Hammond B-3's most bop-rooted players, able to play bluesy soul-jazz grooves or break out of the pocket for some nimble, sharply defined solo lines.

Though he led numerous recording dates for Prestige and later Muse, he was best-known as Sonny Stitt's favorite organist, proving eminently compatible with the Parker- influenced saxophonist. Patterson was born in Columbus, OH, on July 22, 1936, and began studying piano as a child.

His first major influence was Erroll Garner, and some of that flavor remained in his playing even after he heard Jimmy Smith in 1956 and changed instruments

Jimmy McGriff

Born: April 3, 1936

Organ master Jimmy McGriff may have studied formally at Juilliard and at Philadelphia's Combe College of Music, but there's nothing fancy about his music. It's basic to the bone, always swinging and steeped in blues and gospel. McGriff's brand of jazz is about feeling. "That's the most important thing," he says. Blues has been the backbone of most of the major jazz organists, including Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff, but throughout his 42-year recording career, McGriff has stuck closer to the blues than any of them. "People are always classifying me as a jazz organist, but I'm more of a blues organ player," he insists

Jack McDuff

Born: September 17, 1926

Brother Jack McDuff, was one of the handful of leading exponents of the soul jazz style created on Hammond organ by Jimmy Smith in the late 1950s. The instrument at the heart of the soul jazz style was the Hammond B-3 organ, usually in the company of electric guitar, drums, and often tenor saxophone. The emergence of Jimmy Smith as a major star on the instrument sparked its widespread use in jazz and pop music in the early 1960s, and McDuff was among its most successful practitioners. Its initial popularity in both jazz and rock had peaked by the end of the decade, and it was later largely superseded for a time by more contemporary developments in keyboard technology, but it retained serious cult status among its devotees, and those musicians who still preferred the challenge of actually having to play everything themselves

Eddy Louiss

Born: May 12, 1941

Eddy Louiss was born Edouard Louise on May 2, 1941 in Paris, France. Born into a musical family, his father was a trumpet player, and he studied several musical instruments, including trumpet and piano. In his early teenage years Louiss played in his father's band. In the early 60s he was playing piano in various Paris nightclubs and continuing with his studies. He also sang with the French vocal group Double Six, other members of which included Roger Guérin, Ward Swingle and Christiane Legrand, the sister of Michel Legrand. Adding the organ to his array of instrumental ability, Louiss played with various jazzmen in the 60s, among them Johnny Griffin, Art Taylor , Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Getz

Mike LeDonne

Born: October 26, 1956

Pianist Mike LeDonne started playing piano at the age of 5 and was raised in his parent’s music store. By the age of 10 his father, a jazz guitarist, began booking him on gigs. He is now an internationally renowned pianist and organist with the unique experience of having played with a wide spectrum of jazz masters from Benny Goodman to Milt Jackson and Sonny Rollins. He has won praise not only from critics but from master musicians: Oscar Peterson picked him as one of his favorite pianists of today. At age 21, Mike graduated from New England Conservatory in 1979 and moved to New York City with the Widespread Jazz Orchestra

Charles Kynard

Born: February 20, 1933

Charles Kynard is an organist whose jazz-funk leanings rival his predecessors and peers, though not eclipsing them. Solid, though never flashy. He also plays electric bass. Kynard's album Reelin' With the Feelin' has been sampled and appears on several acid jazz releases. Hammond virtuoso and electric-bass player, Kynard didn't become too famous for two reasons: he just played in his local L.A. instead of touring, and he recorded very few sessions. Nevertheless, his artistry was enormous and his recordings are true gems. He was too busy to devote himself to a successful career as a jazz musician

Bruce Katz

Bruce Katz occupies a unique space where blues, jazz, rock, soul, and the many aspects of Americana all collide into a style of original instrumental music all his own. He is as comfortable playing "soul-jazz" on the Hammond organ as he is playing 1930's style stride piano or the meanest slow blues. Besides leading the Bruce Katz Band, Bruce is currently playing regularly with Gregg Allman, John Hammond, The Organiks and performing with other artists as well. Bruce was also honored as a 2008 Nominee for the Blues Music Award for "Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year", selected by the Blues Foundation. Over the past twenty five years, Bruce has been an in-demand sideman as well as leading his own band

Richard "Groove" Holmes

Born: May 2, 1931

Richard Arnold "Groove" Holmes, Born Richard Arnold Jackson (Camden, New Jersey) was a jazz organist who performed in the hard bop and soul jazz genre. He is best known for his 1965 recording of "Misty," and is considered a precursor of acid jazz. Holmes burst onto the music scene in the early 1960s (his first album, on Pacific Jazz with guest {{Ben Webster = 11235}} was recorded in March 1961). An African-American, literally a heavyweight (approximately 300 pounds) and physically rotund in stature, he gained immediate respect with an inimitable style of his own. His sound was immediately recognizable in the upper register, but even more so because of his virtuosity in creating, undoubtedly, the most rapid, punctuating, and pulsating basslines of all the jazz organists

Bill Heid

Born: August 11, 1948

Bill Heid came of age in the crucible that was Pittsburgh in its jazz heyday, hanging out at legendary Hill District clubs like the Hurricane Bar and the Crawford Grill. All the jazz greats regularly played in town back in the sixties and young Bill took every opportunity to sit in and learn from these masters. In addition to the many musicians passing through town during that period, Pittsburgh had produced some of the greatest names in jazz "Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Errol Garner, George Benson, Eddie Jefferson, Mary Lou Williams, Stanley Turrentine, to name a few, all called Pittsburgh their hometown