Turns out her parents left the pentecostal church at some point before I was born and so I had no experience with the type of services she described.īut it really wasn't until more recently that I heard some online clips of church organists playing hymns in a style that I immediately recognized as being very close harmonically, rhythmically and emotionally to what I grew up hearing from my mother. Turns out she was brought up playing piano and organ in the pentecostal church and in her words "the music had to make you move"! Well, that made much more sense to me given the way she played. But a year or so ago I was talking with her about her upbringing and was surprised to find out that her church experience was very different from what I had assumed. I assumed that she had somehow learned to play standards like that on her own. Of course I recognized certain blues and gospel elements in her sound but I never really knew exactly where she got it from. I never thought much about church after that. But I did realize that the divide between the kind of music I was hearing in church and the kind of music my mother played on the organ was rather enormous. We didn't even go much at all but I'm guessing that the adults in my family thought it was a good idea for me to get some kind of religious upbringing even as my mother had pretty much left the church. The little exposure I had to church services as a kid was to be honest, quite boring. This was in the early '60s at a time when socially it was a big deal not only to be a woman in this field but to have also made that break from the church to the world of secular nightlife and entertainment.
Gulbransen theatrum organ full#
But by the time I came along she was playing in nightclubs full time. I was aware that my mother learned to play in church. But I was always at something of a loss trying to describe exactly what this was and where it came from. There was little improvisation involved but over the years working in clubs she would come up with arrangements and "shout" choruses to these tunes, which I then grew up hearing (and playing) at the many house parties we had. Sometimes I'm asked what kind of music my mother played and I reply that while she did not regard herself as a jazz musician she did play standards in a swinging fashion. Yet in some ways the trajectory from her musical upbringing leading to my own involvement in music is just now becoming more clear to me. With her organ playing days now long past the memories I have from hearing her play and teaching me standards when I began playing saxophone remain formidable.
This is a promotional photo of my mother taken in the early 1960's from her days playing Hammond B3 organ professionally in Baltimore nightclubs.
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