Jimmy Smith's organ sound post-1957?

[michel devos]

a) Jimmy McGriff never modified his organ. the only organist who did any work to his own instrument was Groove Holmes, and he modded the hell out of it.

You might add Lou Bennett to the short list.

When he lived in Paris and Spain, he completely modified his B3 , adding MIDI features and others, to call it the "Bennett Machine". I believe many recordings have been made with this instrument : I need some time to check it out, if you like

[Shawn]

Not jazz, but I remember reading that Ken Hensley from Uriah Heep did some modifications. He did some studio work in the 80's, I read that when he showed up at the studio the first thing he did was to start tinkering with the rented organ until it sounded like he wanted it.

Sorry I don't have any more information than that...his sound is similar to Jon Lord, so I'm guessing he also ran the organ through a Marshall.

[Jim Alfredson]

I had a hunch that RVG used a direct signal from the organ for a lot of those records. Is this verifiable?

McGriff had to have done something to his organ. The percussion sounds like no other organ I've heard. Even if it was the simple resistor mod to un-do the volume drop when the percussion is on normal volume... he had to have done something. I've never heard another organ sound like that.

I love the sound of the old field coil Leslies. I have a 21H that sounds gorgeous (with a nice quartet of NOS Tung Sols).

[michel devos]

One of he many recordings Lou made with the "Bennett machine" is as follows :Now hear my Meaning, for MASrecords in Barcelona 1993.

More infos and sample tracks here : http://www.lou-bennett.org/meaning/index.htm

[Jim Alfredson]

To continue the thought about McGriff, I'm referring to those later Solid State sides that are predominately funky. I don't know the names of them, but they have tunes on there like "Fat Cakes" and "Blue Juice". The organ sounds much more... for lack of a better term... "mean" on those sides than on the previous albums like "A Bag Full Of Blues". The percussion is insane.

Also... something I've been trying to figure out for a couple of years... how did John Patton get that gritty percussion sound on "Dirty Fingers"?

[danasgoodstuff]

Garth Hudson of the Band also liked to tinker with his organs, not Hammonds, Wurlitzers? Also played other keyboards and seemed to have a different sound for nearly every tune.

[danasgoodstuff]

No, I think Garth used Lowery...