50 great moments in jazz: Jimmy Smith and the Hammond organ

The Hammond was designed as a low-budget organ for churches, but it was Smith who marked its place in jazz historyThe Hammond organ wasn't originally designed for jazz clubs, but for churches that couldn't afford a full-blown pipe organ. Unveiled in 1934 by Laurens Hammond (a gifted engineer who had designed an automatic gearbox for cars while still in his teens), the machine depended on an electric motor rotating tonewheels at different speeds, and with different patterns of bumps along their e...

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