Laurens Hammond was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1895*. Two years later, his father William and the bank he managed were under investigation for loan fraud. The bank collapsed. Weeks later, William Hammond drowned himself in Lake Michigan.
Traumatized and hoping to resuscitate her artistic ambitions Laurens’ mother, Idea Louise Hammond**, moved Laurens and his three older sisters to France in 1898. They soon moved to Germany.
In 1909, as tensions mounted in Europe, the Hammond family moved to 235 Greenwood in Evanston, next door to future Nobel Prize Winner and Vice President Charles Dawes***.
Hammond earned his first patent in 1912, graduated from Cornell four years later, and in 1917 served in World War I, rising to the rank of Captain. He spent the Roaring ‘20’s immersed in scientific experimentation. As the first talking films hit the screen, he developed the first 3-D glasses, which he dubbed the Teleview.
He also developed several electronic clocks, priced for the average consumer, just in time for the consumer credit revolution. The first clock manufacturing plant was at 4115 Ravenswood Avenue. A few years later they moved to 2915 N. Western Avenue. Fun facts for my Chicago readers.
Hammond also engineered a bridge table that shuffled and dealt cards. Wicked cool idea that might have taken off, were it not for its release date. 1933 was the nadir of the Great Depression.
The next year, while America was still reeling from the Depression, synthesizing the technologies of the electronic watch and the bridge table, Hammond patented the most soul-stirring musical instrument in the history of humankind: the Hammond Organ.
Largely dependent on the alms of their parishioners, American churches in the 1930’s were financially strapped. Hammond hoped to offer churches a cost-effective solution to their expensive (and expensive to maintain) pipe organs.
After the Depression and the Second World War, and in the throes of rapid suburbanization, Hammond marketed smaller spinet organs to well-to-do parents of Baby Boomers.
Hammond had no musical interest other than classical or traditional (read: somber old white) church music. But he had a profound interest in making money. So he was pleased as punch when the hyperkinetic pastor Clarence Cobbs*** was persuaded by his choir leader, Kenneth Morris, to install a Hammond organ in their new location on South Wabash Avenue. Morris said, “I wanted nothing else. [The Hammond] sold itself…It was the most unusual thing you ever heard. People came from all over just to hear me play that organ.”
By the early 1940s, Cobb’s congregation had over 9,000 members and sometimes held services at Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox. The First Church of Deliverance’s Sunday broadcast became a hit. In 1953, it became the first Black church in the U.S. to televise its weekly services.
Meanwhile, Hammond was marketing heavily to white America. In one publicity stunt, he lined up 53 amateur Model M Hammond organists behind 4 professionals at Soldier Field (home of Da Bears) at the 20th Chicago Tribune Music Festival.
In 1955, the legendary Hammond B3 model was released.
That same year, James Oscar Smith was summoned by Blue Note Records for a live recording at the Baby Grand, opening the evening with Ellington’s masterpiece, “Caravan”.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Sax legend Lou Donaldson said, “the first time I heard Jimmy Smith I almost had a heart attack…I didn’t know what that thing was—a train, a hurricane, something.”
This week, while staycationing my spring break in Berlin, I rode that train into a hurricane and listened exclusively to Hammond B3 soul and jazz.
Best. Idea. Ever.
The B3 has long been my favorite instrument. It's probably my favorite sound.
I made a Hammond B3 playlist on Spotify this week and listened to it obsessively. Here it is for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!
The playlist begins, as it must, with the original master, Jimmy Smith; it ends with Delvon Lamarr and Cory Henry, two modern B3 titans, both of whom I have seen live.******
In thinking about the lively conversations I had with Sabbateur readers a few weeks ago when I shared my favorite cover songs (another Lazar playlist for ya), I sprinkled some soulful covers in the B3 playlist.
I hope you fire up my B3 playlist today. I hope you feel what I feel.
This week, I’ve been thinking about what exactly it is about the B3 sound that captures me.
It’s the tones. So many tones! Hammond claimed the B3 could produce 253 million tones, two tones for every American.
It’s the harmonics. The chorus effects. The percussiveness. The bass. The vibrato.
It’s gritty and elegant, sweet and acidic.
It’s the sound of children playing and old men arguing.
In thinking about how into put to words my passion for the B3, I find myself reconsidering Novack and Evans’ description:
“Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction… Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made [it] an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.”
Okay. Fine. Novack and Evans are describing the “Johnson Treatment,” the techniques of persuasion and flattery deployed by President Johnson to seduce his political interlocutors.******
The B3. It runs the gamut of human emotions and it is what I have been obsessing about all week. Now fire up that playlist this weekend.
And watch out for bunnies that lay eggs. That ain’t natural.
Yours,
D
*Evanston is a lovely leafy green suburb where the white folks and Black folks stand firmly united…to keep poor folks out.
**Idea Louise Hammond. Her name was Idea. She was born in Ohio. Her parents had an Idea.
***By all accounts, Dawes was a first-rate man. Sadly, he worked for presidents Harding and Coolidge, both of whom were unfit for the office. How unfit? Harding said, “I am not fit for this office and never should have been here.” That unfit.
****Reverend Cobbs was rumored to be gay, rather openly so for the times. I slid down a Cobbs rabbit hole. Found this short article from my hometown LGBTQ rag, Windy City Times.
******Here is Cory Henry’s NPR Tiny Desk. Here is Delvon Lamarr on KEXP. Careful with this stuff. It bites.
******While “The Treatment” was perhaps a brand of bullying, it was also responsible for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Economic Opportunity Act, Elementary and Secondary School Act, Gun Control Act, National Foundation of the Arts and Humanities, Public Broadcasting Act, Medicare and Medicaid, etc… Also, here is an infamous recording of Johnson ordering pants and talking about his organ. This was recorded on the very same day that Congress fell for America’s worst false flag operation by passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, thus dragging America into the Vietnam War. That’s messed up, y’all.
Note: While I usually write The Sabbateur for one hour between classes on Fridays, I took advantage of my week off to take a deep dive. Hope you dig it. Now go listen to the playlist!