Hammond recomendations

> > Not sure I've ever heard one!
>
> Are you quite serious?
>
> > Any sources for recordings?
>
> Anything with Jimmy Smith on it (including two fine albums with Wes
> Montgomery), or Joey deFrancesco (a great Jimmy Bruno album and a
> great John McLaughlin album come to mind), or the many other Hammond
> virtuosos out there (as you can see I'm more focused on guitarists).
>

Joey deFrancesco did two wonderful CDs with McLaughlin. Free Spirits
in Tokyo (with the inimitable Dennis Chambers on drums) and After the
Rain, a tribute to the John Coltrane Quartet (with former quartet
member, the inimitable Elvin Jones on drums).

Players who are pushing the Hammond sound into the freshest
territory are downtowners John Medeski and Jamie Saft. There is a "best
of" CD of Medeski Martin and Wood that has some great stuff, though
"Shakman" and "Its a Jungle in Here" are worth having in their complete
versions. MMW are extremely popular these days, but that shouldn't
be jheld against them, they do some great music.

The only Jamie Saft I have is on a CD called Mr Lucky. It has the
inimitable Dave Tronzo on slide guitar to add some manic microtones.
McLaughlin also has a bending style, perhaps the 335-like guitar
he uses has a scalloped fretboard, that is "expressively" microtonal.

Love that Hammond sound!

Bob Valentine

[I wrote:]
>>> Not sure I've ever heard one!
>>> Any sources for recordings?

[Paul E:]
>>Anything with Jimmy Smith on it (including two fine albums with Wes
>>Montgomery), or Joey deFrancesco (a great Jimmy Bruno album and a
>>great John McLaughlin album come to mind), or the many other Hammond
>>virtuosos out there (as you can see I'm more focused on guitarists).

[Bob Valentine:]
>Joey deFrancesco did two wonderful CDs with McLaughlin. Free Spirits
>in Tokyo (with the inimitable Dennis Chambers on drums) and After the
>Rain, a tribute to the John Coltrane Quartet (with former quartet
>member, the inimitable Elvin Jones on drums).

Thanks for the recommendations! I poked around on amazon.com and found
some audio samples. Not high quality, of course, but one thing that was
clear was... I don't like the music! I've always, unfortunately, been
"jazz deficient" for much of the genre; it just doesn't speak to me,
somehow.

On the other hand, I'm very interested in trying to dig a little deeper
into the Hammond organ. When it came up before, in the midst of a
heated debate over the proper meaning of "JI", I missed the paise for
its sound that I'm now hearing. Famous musicians use it to produce
music much revered by well-informed listeners. With so many choices of
keyboards available, the use of the Hammond would seem to mean one (or
both) of two things:

. There's something about its ease of playing, notes with a nice
degree of attack, built-in effects, or other characteristics not
directly related to tuning.

. There's something about its (quasi) 12-tET overtones.

Could it be the latter? If so, that's a foreshadowing of Bill Sethares'
work that we've heard most recently in his 19-tET piece (I should not
fail to add Margo Schulter's name as well, on recent pieces which so
far, unfortunately, are not available for listening). And it would seem
to reinforce the notion that tinkering with the precise tunings of
partials might be a powerful and effective tool for mictotonal
composition.

I'd relly _love_ to hear a MIDI sound set with all the voices altered
to have partials aligned with 12-tET, then listen to 12-tET sequences in
those voices. It'd be lots of fun to compare that to my own adaptive
tunings with harmonic voices. Maybe I'd get beat up bad!

JdL

--- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:

> Players who are pushing the Hammond sound into the freshest
> territory are downtowners John Medeski and Jamie Saft.

I've seen Medeski a few times and have a few of his CDs . . . I'll have to check out Jamie Saft.

If your tastes run more towards progressive rock than jazz, check out Tony Kaye's subtle
Hammond work (as well as nice acoustic piano) on _The Yes Album_ by Yes (1971). After this
album, they fired Tony and got into synths . . . not sure how I feel about that. Of course, at the
time, Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer -- eponymous first album was nice) was
the Jimi Hendrix of the Hammond organ, playing Bach, Copland, and Ginastera on it from
behind and then smashing it to bits . . .

Oh, and of course everyone's heard Billy Preston's Hammond on the Beatles "Let it Be"!

The Hammond organ came on up this list a while back, in the great "definition of JI" debate,
because while its tones (and overtones) are within 1 cent of 12-tET, they're actually RI (rational
intonation)! All the notes are actually produced by tonewheels connected to a central 320Hz
gear, and the gear ratios are all fractions of two-digit numbers -- hence it's very much like various
systems that some people consider to be JI. I had to conclude that under such a definition of JI,
_anything_ can be considered JI.

--- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_29687.html#29687

>
> > > Not sure I've ever heard one!
> >
> > Are you quite serious?
> >
> > > Any sources for recordings?
> >
> > Anything with Jimmy Smith on it (including two fine albums with
Wes
> > Montgomery), or Joey deFrancesco (a great Jimmy Bruno album and a
> > great John McLaughlin album come to mind), or the many other
Hammond
> > virtuosos out there (as you can see I'm more focused on
guitarists).
> >
>

Is the Hammond with Leslie speakers what Miles Davis uses in "In a
Silent Way..." or am I getting confused...??

_________ _________ ______
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:

> Is the Hammond with Leslie speakers what Miles Davis uses in "In a
> Silent Way..." or am I getting confused...??

I know there's a Rhodes electric piano on there . . . I'll have to
listen to see if there's a Hammond too . . .

BTW, my favorite use of the Hammond may be by flautist/keyboardist
Thijs van Leer in the Dutch prog-rock band Focus . . . check out
their albums _Moving Waves_ and _Focus III_ . . .

>On the other hand, I'm very interested in trying to dig a little deeper
>into the Hammond organ. When it came up before, in the midst of a
>heated debate over the proper meaning of "JI", I missed the paise for
>its sound that I'm now hearing. Famous musicians use it to produce
>music much revered by well-informed listeners. With so many choices of
>keyboards available, the use of the Hammond would seem to mean one (or
>both) of two things:
>
> . There's something about its ease of playing, notes with a nice
> degree of attack, built-in effects, or other characteristics not
> directly related to tuning.
>
> . There's something about its (quasi) 12-tET overtones.

The tuning of the Hammond partials to 12-tet(or the much-debated rational approximation thereof)doesn't really make a difference, because only octaves and fifths are used for the drawbars anyway.

This is probably the reason the designers thought it was acceptable to use 12tet partials, because the third harmonic is so close anyway. Some larger Hammond models had a single fifth harmonic stop, but it's rarely used by players anyway (probably because the non-harmonic detuning is considered unpleasant).

What does matter though, is the fact that the timbre consists of only octaves and fifths-which are not out of tune with 12tet, whether they are 2 cents flat or not. This is the reason for the percieved "harmoniousness" of Hammond and other organ timbres

-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MATS �LJARE
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/oljare

_________________________________________________________________
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--- In tuning@y..., "Mats Öljare" <oljare@h...> wrote:
>
> The tuning of the Hammond partials to 12-tet(or the much-debated
rational
> approximation thereof)doesn't really make a difference, because
only octaves
> and fifths are used for the drawbars anyway.

The drawbar-harmonics on mine, and every one I've seen, are 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, and 8.

> Some larger
> Hammond models

Mine isn't that big.

> had a single fifth harmonic stop, but it's rarely used by
> players anyway (probably because the non-harmonic detuning is
considered
> unpleasant).

Pardon me, but are you basing this on pure speculation? I watched
Jimmy Smith play and he made plenty of use of the fifth harmonic
stop. Most players I've watched tend to manipulate the drawbars as a
group and do not have any special provision for the fifth partial.

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Erlich <paul@stretch-music.com>

> --- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:
>
> > Is the Hammond with Leslie speakers what Miles Davis uses in "In a
> > Silent Way..." or am I getting confused...??
>
> I know there's a Rhodes electric piano on there . . . I'll have to
> listen to see if there's a Hammond too . . .

There's organ. I can't tell if it's specifically a Hammond. It
does sound very cool.

* David Beardsley
* http://biink.com
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley