Wednesday, January 19, 2022

• Fred Van Hove, Verloren Maandag
• Evan Parker & Sten Sandell, Psalms
• Steve Lacy, Dreams
• Steve Lacy, Momentum
• Jimmy Smith, Plays Fats Waller
• The Residents, Meet the Residents
• Jim O’Rourke, All Kinds of People Love Burt Bacharach
• The Verlaines, Juvenilia
• Michael Hurley, The Time of the Foxgloves
• Legends of Old-Time Music: Fifty Years of County Records (disc 2)

I’m on a pipe organ kick, as I said. But actually, any kind of organ will do. Mighty cathedral or roller rink, I’m down either way.

I like Korla Pandit, the organ parts on Dylan’s mid-1960s records, Garth Hudson with the Band, “96 Tears”, “Rock Lobster”, the relentless Farfisas on Glass’s Einstein on the Beach (original recording, please) and Music with Changing Parts, Reich’s “Four Organs”, long-form organ drones by Kevin Drumm or Charlemagne Palestine or Jim O’Rourke or Phill Niblock…

And the Hammond organ in jazz? There’s a lot of exploring I haven’t done. There’s whole Hammond planets out there I’ve only seen through a telescope. But I’m crazy for Jimmy Smith Plays Fats Waller. On his hit records Smith can sound like he’s trying to awe you with the instrument’s abilities. Here he’s in a reflective mood and serves up some 3 a.m., everyone’s-gone-home music. A few die-hards are nodding off at the bar. Smoke curls up from a cigarette nobody’s remembered to take a drag from lately. And the guy at the organ is taking it easy and playing for his own pleasure.