The Hammond Jazz organ story

Story copyright 1996-2008 by T.C. Pfeiler

The Hammond factory was located at 4200 West Diversey Avenue in Chicago /Illinois. The first Jazz organist in history was Fats Waller (1904 - 1943), but the real pioneer of the modern Jazz organ was William Strethen Davis (1918-1995), better known as "Wild Bill Davis". Please note : he had nothing to do with the cornet player Wild Bill Davison ! Wild Bill Davis is the "daddy" of every Jazz organist and keyboarder. One of his first recordings at the Hammond organ was "Tambouritza Boogie" with Louis Jordan in 1945.

"Classic" Jazz organists play their own bass line. They don´t need a bass player. The "classic" Jazz organ trio was created by Wild Bill Davis. His basic conception with organ, guitar and drums was a powerful and enormous swinging vehicle from the first moment on ! Sometimes a saxophonist is added.

Soon Wild Bill´s conception was called a "organ trio" and became a international standard and most Jazz organists today work with the "organ trio" concept.T.C. Pfeiler today Austria´s first international known Jazz organist and featured artist on Tonewheel Records was lucky enough to have Wild Bill Davis as his first and most important teacher. In the late 1980s, Davis and Pfeiler recorded a LP. They played live in concert at the same time on two separate Hammond B3 organs ! This fantastic album soon became a collector´s item.

Jazz organists prefer the Hammond organ, model B3 or C3 console. Most favorited sound system is the Leslie speaker model 122 or 147 with tube type amplifiers. The legendary Hammond B3 and C3 was equipped with two keyboards called "manuals". Each manual had sixtyone playing keys and twelve reverse colored "preset keys", located at the left end of each manual. The manuals are called "Swell"(upper) and "Great" (lower). The bass pedal keyboard had 25 notes. Both manuals plus bass pedals were controlled by a single expression or swell pedal. The swell pedal was operatet by the right food of the organist. It was a sensitive and fast working unit and a helpful tool to set dynamic accents. With four groups of nine harmonic drawbars for both manuals, each had eight degrees plus two extra drawbars for the bass pedals, the organist could create millions of tone colors. "Touch Response Percussion" with second and third harmonic, installed for the first time in 1955 on models B3, C3, RT3 and M3, and the unimitable scanner driven "Selective Vibrato", installed for the first time in former models B2, C2, RT2 and M2 in 1948 are exclusive Hammond effects. From todays view the model B3 console saw a unusual long producion period : it was made from 1955 to 1974 ! The Hammond Organ Company of Chicago / Illinois sold the B3 as the "Home Model"!

Complete with bench and bass pedal keyboard it weights approx. 425 pounds and qualified the travelling Jazz organist for a second business : furniture transports. The model C3 console was equipped with the same technique but used a different cabinet style. It was offered by the Hammond Company as the "Church Model".

The "Concert Model" was called RT3. It had a wider "C3 like styled"cabinet and 32 note bass pedal set. A vacuum tube generated bass solo system was featured. B3, C3 and RT3 consoles had no built in sound systems. Only a pre-amplifier was installed. The best sound results came with a Hammond model P/PR 40 tone cabinet or with a Leslie 122 or 147 speaker system, powered by tube type power amplifiers.

With built in power amplifier and speaker system the RT3 was called model D100 console.The Hammond organ, model A100 console used a narrower C3 cabinet with built in power amplifier and speakers. The A100 series also featured Hammond´s new spring reverb system. A100 models could be ordered in many different and very distinctive cabinet styles with or without locking top and backwall. Today, early Hammond consoles became collector´s item status. Regarding production quality, Laurens Hammond was a true fanatic! Today you can find countless old Hammond organs in mint condition all over the world.  Hammond fans are very enthusiastic people. Most of them do everything to keep this classics running !

Beside the full size consoles, Hammond also produced a line of smaller organs, called "spinets".

Hammond spinet organs like series M3, M100, L100,T100, but also the later produced full size console organs series H100, X66, X77, E100, R100 and the "drawbarless" church organ model G100 are not really important in the history of Hammond Organ Jazz. Laurens Hammond passed away in 1973 and sadly the Hammond Organ Company stopped the production of "tonewheel organs" in 1974.

Hammond´s new production line was completely restyled and used conventional techniques. Most of the new Hammonds after 1975 had a terrible sound and Hammond was out of business soon ! Over the next years the Hammond Comp. saw some different owners, but nobody could bring back the glory of the old days !

With the new smaller keyboards everything has changed and the real Hammond sound was unpopular for many years. The new wave of "Acid Jazz" born in England brought back the good old Hammond sound in the late 1980s. The 1990s  brought us a powerful re-birth of the Hammond Jazz-organ tradition. Quality is timeless!

Transistors, quartz technology or today´s digital processors - nothing, absolutely nothing can replace a tube amplified original Hammond organ with electro-magnetic tonewheel generator, scanner vibrato and touch-response percussion. NOT TODAY AND NOT TOMORROW!