Angelino's Pizza theatre organ, Dean Cook playing

Angelino's will be missed. A fun little pizza parlor in San Jose, it contained a theatre organ. Dean Cook was house organist. It recently closed, and was converted into a Greek restaurant. The organ has been restored and installed in a private residence.

Dean Cook had an electronic keyboard, which he placed on the music rack. He used songs he'd recorded onto the keyboard to back up his playing - it was subtle, did not overpower the organ by any means. I asked him to play something that fit this unique organ's unusual stoplist and used its resources and his playing style to best effect. He chose "So Happy Together" by The Turtles, and despite claiming the organ was badly out of tune (they were gearing up to do some tuning) it sounded good to me. In the video you'll see some playing, Dean doing registration by hand (changing stops), the swell shades and the unusual orchestral bells in action. On the last chord, Cook flips off the tremulants (vibrato) on the backrail.

Details for the techies and organ lovers, as much as my memory and my photographs tell me:
WurliTzer console, with replaced top lid (replica of scalloped lid style) and gold decoration. Console missing piano pedals (thunder, reversibles, etc.)
Pipework and instruments: An odd hybrid mix, including in it's 14? 15? (confirmation anyone?) ranks were 4 ranks of strings, but the loudest reed was (again, confirmation?) a Cor Anglais. Five reeds in all, including a Vox Humana. I know, among others, WurliTzer and Robert Morton pipework.
Tuned percussions: 18-note chimes, bizarre 61-note Orchestral Bells, 37-note Marimba, and another tuned percussion (Glockenspiel?) installed in the chamber. Upright WurliTzer piano.
Non-tuned percussions, traps and effects: Tap cymbal, crash cymbal, snare drum with two beaters (roll), bass drum with two roll and one thump beaters, tambourine, castanets, cowbell, triangle, doorbell and fire bell (two sizes of electric reiterating bells), Horse Hooves (Robert Morton? style with three pairs of wood "cloppers" that play in a repeating three-part sequence). May have had a small siren, too.
Relay: Original electro-pneumatic, behind glass.
Combination Action: None, missing. All registration done by hand.
Locations: All pipes in single chamber, with two sets of six swell shutters, so low that you could stand in front of them, looking through into the chambers as sound and air flowed over you. All pipes + one tuned percussion in chamber, everything else unenclosed.

A fun little instrument. Angelino's will be missed. Thanks for the wonderful music, Dean. With Pizza & Pipes in Redwood City having sold their organ (Anyone know to whom?) Bella Roma moving (taking the organ or no?) and Ye Olde Pizza Joynt damaged by fire (reopening ever? I don't think so) is there any Pipe Organ Pizza fun left in CA?

Can anyone tell me: The stoplist? What reeds were in this? Where the organ went? How many ranks?

Remaining pipe organ pizza locations: Roaring 20s Pizza & Pipes in Ellenton, Florida (4-manual Wurlitzer); Organ Piper Music Palace in Greenfield, Wisconsin (hybrid Wurlitzer/Kimball); Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa, Arizona (2nd largest Wurlitzer, 4 manuals 78 ranks).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Wurlitzer
• WurliTzer
• theatre
• theater
• organ
• pizza

[mfuji02]

THIS IS A FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT BREAKFAST PLACE NOW WHAT FUCKING HEARTBREAK >_<

[JonasClark]

@mfuji02 A breakfast place? Really? What's in the space where the pipes were? After Angelino's closed it became a Greek joint for a while, and the pipe room became a stage for bellydancing...

[mfuji02]

@JonasClark yes! a shitty breakfast joint!. Tables are in the space where the pipes were I was so fucking disturbed that I couldn't eat my food sitting where the pipes were wtf happened how could such a magical place turn into that pos oh well I guess great things don't last for ever.... :( I gotta go check out bella roma & see if it's any thing close to angelinos. :/

[JonasClark]

@mfuji02 Well, tell me what you find. Last I heard, Bella Roma moved, and I have heard nothing regarding whether the organ moved with them. Ye Olde Pizza Joynt is most definitely NOT coming back, and Pizza & Pipes in Redwood City sold their Wurlizer (the former Seattle 5th Ave. organ) a few years ago, turning the chambers into an arcade the way the one in Santa Clara did over 30 years ago.

[OaklandRaidersFan66]

I have video of Ye Olde Pizza Joynt and I just posted it on my YouTube Channel

"oaklandraidersfan66" from when I was there last in 1993 !! Hope everyone enjoys!!

[deancook652]

@JonasClark The Bella Roma organ was removed to storage; the new locatiuon didn't last six months. Forget it...Bella Roma is dead due to the folks who bought the business from Les Schaffer after his wife Rita died; they thought they could take a successful business, cheapen the product, relocate it, and bring in the organ "at a later date" for next to no money.

Lesson learned...the Bella is no more.

[mfuji02]

@JonasClark ausome tnks 4info! -_-

[JonasClark]

@mfuji02 I think I could design the setting if someone else built the thing and laid out the organ. I've drawn up a few fantasy settins for pipe organ pizza parlors, most based loosely on the very 70s-style Organ Grinder restaurants (Portland, Denver, Torointo) and the Organ Stop chain in Arizona. If you can get over to Mesa, AZ, the last remaining Organ Stop is running with a 4/78 instrument, second-largest in existance behind the Sanfilippo 5/80 but, like Sanfilippo, with a rotating lift.