Instruments
Organ
An organ in its most general musical sense is an instrument consisting of a set of tuned pipes that sound when air, usually controlled from a keyboard, passes through them. Thus small wind-blown instruments of various kinds, including the harmonica, may be referred to as "mouth organs," and medieval Europe saw the development of the portative (portable) organ. But the word is most strongly associated with the church organ, whose elaboration in the great cathedrals of Europe ranks among the most magnificent engineering achievements of Western civilization. With multiple keyboards offering a range of tone options, they grew to enormous size; the bellows mechanism of one German instrument (that in the town of Halberstadt) required ten men to operate. Among classical composers it was unquestionably J.S. Bach who explored the organ's potentialities most fully, but the common designation of the organ as "the king of instruments" may have come down from Mozart, who wrote organ music during his early tenure in the employ of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Various parts of the organ's mechanical action were electrified in the early twentieth century. The organ shared with early electronic instruments the capability of producing a continuous tone, and perhaps for that reason it was one of the first instruments for which an electronic duplicate was made available: the French Coupleux-Givelet model of 1928 was soon followed by the American Hammond organ, consistently a top seller ever since its introduction in the mid-1930s. The electronic organ's role in popular music has been immense, but in recent years the dividing line between the electronic organ and other electronic keyboard instruments has not always been easy to draw.
Artist Highlights
| Artist |
Active |
Styles |
| Alice Coltrane
|
1960s - 2000s |
Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Jazz, Jazz Instrument, Modal Music, Piano Jazz |
| Bobby Byrd
|
1950s - 1990s |
Funk, Soul, Deep Funk |
| Jimmy McGriff
|
1960s - 2000s |
Soul Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Jazz Blues, Hard Bop |
| Larry Young
|
1960s - 1970s |
Fusion, Hard Bop, Post-Bop, Soul Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Modal Music, Avant-Garde Jazz |
| Spooner Oldham
|
1960s - 2020s |
Blue-Eyed Soul, Pop-Soul, Southern Soul, Soul, Roots Rock, Americana |
| Fats Waller
|
1910s - 1940s |
Early Jazz, Jive, Stride, Swing, Jazz Instrument, Piano Jazz |
| Johnny "Hammond" Smith
|
1950s - 1990s |
Hard Bop, Soul Jazz |
| Charles Earland
|
1960s - 1990s |
Hard Bop, Jazz-Funk, Soul Jazz, Jazz Blues, Mainstream Jazz |
| Wild Bill Davis
|
1930s - 1990s |
Swing, Jazz Blues, Jazz Instrument, Saxophone Jazz |
| Big John Patton
|
1950s - 2000s |
Hard Bop, Soul Jazz |
| Rick Wakeman
|
1960s - 2020s |
Art Rock, Prog-Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Film Music, Soundtracks, Orchestral |
| Freddie Roach
|
1950s - 1970s |
Soul Jazz, Big Band |
| Reuben Wilson
|
1960s - 2020s |
Soul Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Fusion, Hard Bop |
| Al Kooper
|
1950s - 2020s |
Rock & Roll, Blues-Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Psychedelic/Garage, Retro-Soul, Soul, American Trad Rock, Folk-Rock, Roots Rock |
| Bobby Emmons
|
1960s |
Early R&B |
| Booker T. Jones
|
1960s - 2020s |
Memphis Soul, R&B Instrumental, Soul, Southern Soul |
| Jimmy Smith
|
1940s - 2000s |
Hard Bop, Jazz-Funk, Soul Jazz, Mainstream Jazz, Fusion |
| Benmont Tench
|
1970s - 2020s |
Contemporary Pop/Rock, Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Heartland Rock |
| Gregg Allman
|
1960s - 2010s |
Album Rock, Blues-Rock, Southern Rock, Boogie Rock, Hard Rock |
| Richard "Groove" Holmes
|
1960s - 1990s |
Soul Jazz, Hard Bop |