Super Heavy Organ

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About Super Heavy Organ

Product Description Robert Walter is the definitive soul-jazz organist of his generation. His latest project, Super Heavy Organ, was recorded in his new hometown of New Orleans. Magna Carta. 2005. From the Artist Stanton Moore owns up about the first track: "I’ve always enjoyed working with Robert. He’s a great player and a great writer. I always look forward to learning whatever new tunes he brings to the table. I learned ‘Adelita’ at the session and it’s become one of my favorite tunes to play live." About the Artist It’s a cross to bear, the Hammond Organ. You ask anyone who’s played one on the club scene and they’ll tell you horror stories about jacking the B3 up fire escapes or about removing doorframes, not to mention the sheer weight alone. No question, the Hammond is a super heavy organ, and you need a strong bass player! Then there’s what’s under the hood. Talking about a mid-fifties B3, there are layers of keys, a twenty-five note pedal bass, four sets of draw bars, eighteen changeable presets—with, arguably a sound that smokes any modern instrument. You need a driver’s license to run it and you need a musician behind the wheel or, somehow, the Hammond doesn’t erupt in those fat, bubbly tones, or in those long glissandos that rip the paint off the wall. "I just love the instrument," Robert Walter enthuses. He knows the mantle he wears when he plays the Hammond and the Leslie. He knows the lineage, which, in no particular order, includes Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, and new comers like Joey DeFrancesco. Walter wasn’t born behind an organ; in fact, he began gigging with piano and Fender Rhodes. But the story goes he wanted something more powerful, wider in bandwith—something heavier. The Hammond fit perfectly with the name of his band, and the name of this disk, Super Heavy Organ. No stranger to Magna Carta Records, Walter has also recorded with The Clinton Administration and has released Giving Up The Ghost. Walter proves himself aware of the past, which he’s appropriated by means of oral history and by playing with key exponents. This is his route to originality, and what provides him with a contemporary edge. As he laments in the video interview (insert the CD in your computer), "Everybody’s playing the same shit in the same ways." It’s not enough to play the same old voicings over the same old changes. It’s not enough just to play worn out funk. Of course, the task is easier when you’re surrounded with colleagues Skerik, Charlie Hunter, or the current crew.