Wurlitzer Organ Trust
Of
Hollywood Theatre,
Avondale,
Pops On Pipes Concert
Reviews
Jelani Eddington –
Review by Chris
Caspell, The Classical Source. Reprinted with
permission.
Jelani
Eddington is one of the young talents gracing the world's semi-stages; I say
semi-stages because although a number of the great concert halls have an organ,
very few have a Wurlitzer. In truth, you would be forgiven for thinking that
the Wurlitzer is an instrument of a bygone age, given a brief resurgence
through Monty Python's 'intermission' scene in the classic 1970s TV programmes.
In fact, this is not the case. A casual search of the Internet shows over
200,000 web pages devoted to the instrument. There are also over 100 societies
worldwide, including a number in the
Eddington is something of a
prodigy. He began piano lessons at the age of four and classical organ at
eight, moving swiftly onto theatre organ under the direction of John Ferguson
-- a well-respected tutor. At the age of 13, and the youngest ever winner,
Eddington won the American Theatre Organ Society's 'Young Theatre Organist
Competition' -- an international competition with competitors from the age of
13 to 21. Then in 2001, ATOS named him the 2001 Theatre Organist of the Year,
again the youngest ever recipient of this award. Add to this his 15 recordings.
This is one musician that you should take exceedingly seriously. Oh, and one
other thing, Eddington also has a Doctorate Law degree from
With such a resume, you might
expect Eddington to be unapproachable: but not so. He loves his audience, and
they love him back. He has been making a habit of travelling 'down under' for a
while now and jokes that it is to get away from the seven inches of snow back
home. I don't think he expected the cyclone that rocked
For me the faster pieces, such
as Lou Bega's Tico Tico, worked better on this instrument. Eddington has an
amazing technique and the excitment felt as his fingers and feet snake up and
down the instrument is lost when he moves into a more introspective mood. Many
of the pieces played at this recital were ideally suited to show off the
capabilities of the instrument. Pavanne -- whose? I don't' know, though it
sounded like Gershwin -- swung to the sounds of reeds, xylophone and an array
of other percussion instruments.
Eddington explained how the
first Wurlitzer organs attempted to try and replicate the sounds of an orchestra,
and with that launched into the last piece before the interval: the Overture to
Rossini's William Tell. Ever since The Lone Ranger inflicted irreparable
connotations to the overture's final gallop it has been difficult to do too
much damage to one of Rossini's best-loved pieces. The Wurlitzer made an
admirable stab at the forte passages, only to be let down by ill tuned solo
pipes in the quieter sections. Perhaps this is what is meant by "mostly
restored"!
The second half opened to Jerome
Kern's I Won't Dance, followed by an accompaniment to a silent movie, perhaps
one of the best-known uses of the Wurlitzer. In Angora Love, an escaped goat
decides to follow Laurel & Hardy back to their lodgings and does almost
anything to avoid a bath. Made in 1929, this was the last silent movie made by
the duo. In the intervening twenty minutes, Eddington's careful accompaniment
complemented every nuance of the film in much the same way a composer does
today: only this was live and with no room for out-takes.
This concert concluded with a
first performance -- that of Borodin's Polovtsian Dances from his opera Prince
Igor, as arranged by Eddington. In his version, the dances felt much more
authentic in terms of earthiness than they ever do from a chorus and orchestra.
In addition Eddington's passing reference to the 1953 musical Kismet made it
all too clear: music can be reused to produce something as good as the
original, but different. It also fixed the Wurlitzer to the music of the
early-to-mid twentieth century.
As an encore, Eddington played
Billy Joel's Root Beer Rag, taken from the 1998 album Streetlife Serenade. This
final piece seemed to contradict everything Eddington had previously played --
a piece of contemporary music by a rock musician. The Rag has a strong
resemblance to those of Scott Joplin and so, in fact, looks back to the heyday
of the Wurlitzer: a fitting conclusion.
Jelani Eddington is a musician
that you don't want to miss even if you aren't particularly fond of theatre
organ music; he is a very talented young man -- you will leave the theatre
impressed and with a smile on your face. He continues his tour of
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