Larry Vannucci at the Piano Console Wurlitzer: Honky Tonk Train Boogie

Sorry that this is a static recording without the video of the artist. I have had requests to let folks hear
this rare type of instrument. I apologize for the sound quality of the recording, but until I get the organ playing again, these older recordings will have to do. And, sadly, none will ever include Larry Vannucci as he passed away in 1993.

The late great jazz theatre organist Larry Vannucci recorded this cut in the mid-1980s. Larry specialized in playing these smaller pipe organs and knew just how to get great variety from them. Larry plays a high-balling "Honky Tonk Train Boogie". The man was amazing when it came to playing jazz. By his legion of Bay Area fans, Larry is sorely missed,

It may seem odd hearing jazz coming from an instrument that is 85 years old and designed for silent film accompaniment, but Honky Tonk Train Boogie dates from at least 1927. This just displays the versatility of the little instrument in the hands of a musical madman like Larry. Larry always called it the ultimate saloon organ.

The organ comprises (in the recording) just 3 sets of pipes: Vox Humana, Concert Flute, and Salicional. It also includes xylophone, glockenspiel, chimes, traps and effects, and of course the large scale piano with mandolin attachment.

Several times in this recording Larry can be heard using the mandolin attachment on the piano, straight piano, xylophone ,and the various pipe combinations. The organ also has a 5-1/3 Solo manual coupler that Larry uses for some almost Hammond organ-like sounds.

The roll player in this particular organ is designed to play 88-note rolls in a duplex roll frame. Some of these piano console organs were equipped with 88/98 concert roll players and could actually play the Wurlitzer Concert PianOrchestra rolls. This organ, Wurlitzer opus 777, was an econo model using the 88n rolls with manual registration of the stops such as would be found in Wurlitzer YO, YU and similar style econo photoplayers.

Unfortunately, I do not have any recordings of this organ with the roll player in operation.

This is not a tubular pneumatic photoplayer. Still, the instrument is a hybrid of the true photoplayers and true electro-pneumatic theatre organs.

Of the 500 electro-pneumatic piano console instruments built, of all Wurlitzer piano console styles, fewer than 10 are known to be intact. Of those, only three are in playable condition. A fourth is under or has been restored in Montana. A similar instrument is still in its original location, restored, in Virginia but this instrument never had a roll player. The remainder are in storage. Parts of an instrument are known to exist in its original theatre in New York state.

In 1924, this particular organ was originally installed in the Hatta Theatre in San Diego. It was reposessed by Wurlitzer in 1925 and moved to the Kinema Theatre in Graham/Huntington Park south of LA. In 1933 it was moved, intact, to a mortuary in downtown LA and remained there until 1982. It was installed in Fresno from 1982 to 1998. Unfortunately, it has not played a note since then. The organ has since been completely restored and ready to be reinstalled once I find a suitable location/home.

Though the audio is terrible, here is a Wurlitzer style YU in a private museum in Europe. It can be clearly seen that the console is very similar to this style 109:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-Gk6b5sj0k&translated=1

Category:

Music

Tags:

• player piano
• photoplayer
• theatre organ
• silent film
• Wurlitzer
• theatres
• AMICA
• MBSI
• ATOS
• jazz
• pipe organ
• Hammond organ
• Larry Vannucci

[The2010SnowDay]

What are the specifications of your organ? Is there a website with pictures? What opus #/ style is it?

[Yaledmot]

@The2010SnowDay A 3-rank style 109 Special. I do not have a website for the instrument and probably won't until I get it playing again. It is opus 777 (1924) and came from a theatre in San Diego repo'ed to the Kinema Theatre in Graham (Huntington Park,) CA.

[The2010SnowDay]

When will you have the organ installed?

[Yaledmot]

@The2010SnowDay At the rate I am going, 10 years after I am dead.

[KawhackitaRag]

A style U photoplayer has two large 56-note ranks of pipes, and a big set of bells, right?

I don't think this is an odd choice of tune at all... I think if one is faced with a small organ, they might as well play the widest variety of music as possible on it. I think there is a reason Wurlitzer B theatre organs were so popular - organists weren't such prima donnas back then - they weren't the "poor workmen" always blaming their tools and wanting something bigger and more unifed!

[Yaledmot]

The Style O photoplayer also had two ranks: Flute and wood violin. I saw the remains of the piano from a style YO that was in the Crystal Theatre in Porterville, CA. It had the same scale piano as this monster in my front room.

What far too many organ enthusiasts have lost vision of is that most of the "average" theatre organs were 3 to 7 ranks. A 10-15 rank theatre organ was "big." Unfortunately, "organic" cancer has spread matching some "organic" egos.

[alamedaOrgan]

Larry made a lot of money with this tune