I LOVE Jazz Blues organist... evidently, most of us seem attracted to their "fat" sound and I must say, that if I was 14 again, would totally jump onto that instrument. We got a B3 clone at home, with bass pedals and sadly I seem to fail to enthuse our 14 year old son, who plays Jazz piano since starting on the instrument in 2020 (Covid "vacations") quite proficiently now to get his feet tip-toeing on them bass pedals.Lane Gray wrote: 24 Oct 2025 5:29 pm Instead of exercises, I like sitting down and figuring out what some of my favorite organists are doing, and also trying to understand why what they're doing works.
In addition to Joey DeFrancesco, I love Jimmy McGriff and the German lady Barbara Dennerlein. As the son of a pretty good bassman, I love that she rewired her bass pedals to trigger samples of an actual upright.
In my opinion, Jazz Blues organist seem to play solos which "make more sense" because the forcibly know all foundational elements of music; the bass line, the harmony (chords) and then play things over it which reflect that understanding.
Additionally, in contrast to piano players, organists seem to tend to play solo extensively using clean single-note lines more rarely blurred in harmony or chord-soloing. I GUESS it may be because the clarity would be lost with a instrument which already takes up the "whole room" in band width not just from deep bass notes over "fat" left hand chords and often almost almost shrill melody tone, but also in rather quite noticeable over-tones (harmonics) which are typical for flute and later tone-wheel organs.
All which makes them a good source of "ideas" to pick from.
... J-D.
