Dan Fogel represents the Grits’n Gravy of Jazz Organ.
His story begins in one of the hot-beds for Jazz Organ: Atlantic
City, New Jersey…right there on Kentucky Avenue. “I
was shining shoes at seven and later when ‘Misty’ came
on the radio, I heard Groove Holmes choppin’ away and I went
nuts and didn’t stop until I got my first organ. I’d
sneak out of the house at ten years old and get on the bus in the
middle of the night and go to these now defunct jazz clubs, you
know, on Kentucky Avenue, where I’d hear Groove Holmes, Jack
McDuff, Gene Ludwig, Jimmy Smith, Don Patterson, Butch Cornell,
Doc Bagby… everybody was up there even Gladys Knight and the
Pips. Jimmy Smith used to let me sit in – I was sixteen then”.
You might say Dan Fogel was in the right place at the right time
to watch the Masters of Jazz Organ and learn the fundamentals from
them through osmosis. Since Jazz Organ coursework was unheard of
in music schools, hanging around on Kentucky Avenue was the perfect
campus for a very young but inspired Jazz Organ enthusiast. As a
young teenager, Dan was able to shadow his idols and watch the theatrics
of this music up close and for real. He heard the sounds as they
twirled from the Leslie speakers and felt the groove deep in his
body. It was the thumping bass; the comping chords; and the horn-like
soloing that ripped through Dan’s soul and steered him clear
of his piano lessons and into the wild world of Jazz Organ. “I
started out on the piano at ten”, Dan remembers. “I
did about a year and four months on the piano and felt I was learning
fast. I was supposed to practice my piano lessons but soon I got
my first organ and I would sneak down the basement and play it all
the time. My piano teacher would come to see if I had done my lessons
(which I hadn’t) and during the last three or four months,
he put me on probation. He said, ‘If you don’t have
your lessons done by the next time, that’s gonna be it’.
So, he came and I didn’t have them done…(laughs)…I
was about eleven and a half years old….”
Dan was born June 21, 1948 in Atlantic City. “I was born
and raised here. My mother was a show girl. I got it in my blood.
My cousin is Jackie Gleason. I met him when I was five but I vaguely
remember when we went to New York City to see him. He’s my
second cousin.” Dan’s aunt was singer, Helen Forrest,
a person to whom he has always looked up to. “She was a famous
Big Band singer for Artie Shaw and then Benny Goodman” says
Dan. “That was my father’s sister. She died when she
was about eighty-three about two years ago. She tried to see many
of my performances but she just never made it. She was always fifteen,
twenty minutes late when she was performing in Atlantic City”.
In school, Dan could tell that his love for music was eclipsing
his interest in academics. “I never did good on tests, you
know. I felt intruded by anyone asking me any kind of question.
I had to perform a certain way and I didn’t like that”.
The freedom afforded Dan through music became his primary concern
and motivating force. “Maybe that was in the back of my mind.
I had such independence while improvising on the keyboard. It teaches
you independence at an early age or a form of it. Maybe that’s
why I didn’t do good in school?” When others were playing
high school sports and working at odd jobs, Dan was playing Jazz
Organ in the clubs of Atlantic City. At the age of 13, he debuted
as a Jazz Organist in Atlantic City’s Wonder Gardens
and two years later in 1962 he was considered a professional by
all accounts. From that point on, it was a situation of following
the circuit; playing in as many clubs as possible throughout New
Jersey and the neighboring states; and preparing for a recording
career.
For Dan Fogel, it has always been the vocabulary of Jazz Organ
matched with its tradition. He learned the right way from the beginning
and still holds to the standards Jimmy Smith and the others modeled
for him. “That’s one thing that Jimmy Smith established”,
he reminds, “The sound of the idiom that we’re in, musically,
on the organ. It has been the clarity and discipline of playing
everything properly in time and the notes being connective and yet
punctual”. The fact that Jimmy studied classical music and
integrated all that he learned into his creation of the Jazz Organ
sound, intrigued Dan Fogel. “I went nuts when I heard Jimmy
Smith on the radio and I heard Groove Holmes do ‘Misty’
and even Rufus Harley on the bag pipes. I didn’t know that
was allowed. At that age, I didn’t know that you were allowed
to make sounds like that (laughs)”. The sound of the piano
became much less interesting as Dan was hearing new and exciting
Jazz Organ registrations. “I never was much interested in
the sound of the piano. Being a pianist originally, I was classically
trained and I did all the waltzes and practiced all this stuff as
a piano student (which) is why I now think it is very important
for an organist to practice on the piano and be trained on the piano
to get the form". The ‘form’ that Dan speaks of
is the knowledge one must have of the keyboard and the skill level
with which to express oneself fluently. Dan feels there are many
individuals on the scene who have not mastered the fundamentals
of the keyboard and therefore it’s harder for them to move
onto the manuals of an organ. “They just don’t have
that clarity”, he adds. When asked to comment on those organists
coming from the church, Dan praises their technique and approach.
“They’re wonderful with those chords, those gospel chords,
you know, those raised elevenths and the flatted ninths and thirteenths.
They have all those modulations that go into each other. It sorta
reminds me of Don Patterson and his inversions. Everything was so
close, you know, chord to chord… and I know you’ve heard
many beautiful church organists play. Their chords are like different
colors of paint just running into each other and molding and forming
new visions.” As far as Dan’s own style of playing is
concerned, it’s safe to say that he comes right out of the
same piece of wood the Masters carved into. His position in today's
Jazz Organ scene is, however, still confusing to him. “I spoke
to my brother about this and I said, ‘I’m kinda confused’.
Am I one of the off-springs of the original Jazz Organists or am
I one of the originals because even though I was sixteen playing
along side of Jimmy McGriff and Smith and even Larry Young when
I was thirteen, I don’t really know where I fit”. It
wasn’t long ago when Dan Fogel’s organ group would follow
that of Don Patterson’s when both were booked at the Wonder
Gardens. That’s something few organists today can
say. Dan’s style of playing incorporates many of the licks
that have been passed down from the Masters as well as a few that
he throws in for originality. His manner of playing the Hammond
organ and his utilization of the Leslie tone cabinet are attempts
to create and display a unique and personal style. “I like
to warm the Leslie up. It’s like a good meal. I like to start
off with just a nice vibrato and, depending on the tune, move to
the next course and the next course after that. On the track ‘Out
of This World’, from my latest CD, you’ll hear
that it opens up with no vibrato and then after the first chorus,
I start the vibrato. I use various techniques at different times
for the effect but I never really like to play with the Leslie if
I’m soloing intensively, you know. I like doing my famous
grinding soloing, like Jimmy Smith used to do a lot. I guess that’s
where I got the idea from. Why stop, you know…as long as everything’s
groovin’, you know, just swing it. That’s what I was
talking about before about all the notes being in place. They really
have to be in place to get that groove time going when you’re
improvising at that speed. Groove Holmes could do it. He was excellent
at that and, of course, Jimmy”.
For Dan, being based in Atlantic City makes little difference
to him and his quest for further recognition. “I’ve
been playing the organ for 47 years now and my main concern has
always been to keep making music. The jobs will come. As the music
gets better, the jobs get better”. This, he says, in light
of the decreasing interest in Jazz throughout Atlantic City. “I
can’t lie, there is no jazz here”, he admits. “Everyone
knows about it. They want everyone to stay inside the casinos and
there’s no clubs on the street to go to…not with music.
There’s no live music on the streets of Atlantic City. I can
safely say that”. What about moving away from your home town
and trying your skills in another environment? (I ask) “Well,
it doesn’t really matter”, he reflects. “I know
that George Benson used to live in Maui, for instance, and he’d
fly out of there when he’d have his concerts. It really doesn’t
matter where you live. If you’re worried about working in
a small little pub then Philly has a couple of them. What are you
going to do? … play to six or seven people? That’s great,
don’t get me wrong, I love that. I like playing just for one
person but jazz has changed. It’s gone to the universities
and the concert halls. A lot of it is still here. You still have
circuitry like the Village Vanguard and the Blue
Note, Yoshi’s and Ronnie
Scott’s in London. You have that circuit. You always
have that. I don’t see a problem, if you’re really good
and you have an exciting show. That is what’s really important…
not that you move around a lot or make a lot of motions but that
your music is exciting and it reaches the people. You may have to
scale back on some of the notes to get into that groove –
that’s what I did on ‘15 West’, my new
CD".
Dan’s discography now includes at least six recordings that
are all on Laughing Waters Records: ‘Movement
de la Mer’ (1983); ‘Naked Flowers’
(1986); ‘Something Like That’ (1990); ‘Oracle’
(2001); ‘Soul Eyes’ (2004); and ’15
West’ (2006). In each recording, Dan makes a point to
surround himself with the finest musicians he can find. He has played
with the likes of: Pat Martino, Billy James, Harvey Mason (“Harvey
Mason was my drummer years ago. We went to school together and he
was supposed to be on this last album but he had a date that day”),
Sunny Murray, Cecil Payne, Eddie McFadden, Odean Pope, Tony Ventura,
Rufus Harley and Monnette Sudler. Many of these same artists were
in the recording studio with Dan. In fact, for ’15 West’,
Dan has brought a guitarist who was deeply involved in the Jazz
Organ combo scene ‘back in the day’. O’Donel Levy
welcomed Dan’s invitation and truly enjoyed every minute back
in the organ/guitar marriage. “He used to play with Ellington
and he was Jack McDuff’s guitarist for many years”,
says Dan. “O’Donel has twenty or twenty-five records
on Groove Merchant. I had no idea when we called him in. We were
like bread and butter. He said he never thought he would be playing
like this again”. Finding the perfect guitar match for an
organist can sometimes be a difficult task, as Dan’s suggests:
“It was very hard for me to find a guitarist that really swings.
This guy O’Donel really has the vintage, the age, the experience,
the finesse and the groove”. Dan’s most recent choice
for his drummer has also been fortuitous. “Webb Thomas is
on the drums. He played with everyone: Joey and Jimmy. He’s
great. My bass and his rhythm; we’re just kickin’ it
out” For his tenor voice Dan picked Pete Chavez. “It
sounds like the sounds are coming out of his vocal chords. He just
makes that sax fly”.
For Dan Fogel, Jazz Organ has been a way of life. He is thought
to be one of the last real Jazz Organists around who has not strayed
from the music he grew up with and learned to play so masterfully.
He hears the entire history of this rare genre in his head and he
plays it on his Hammond B-3 organ. It’s this recapitulation
of an American music form that keeps most of us honest. Thanks Dan!
For more information on Dan or to purchase his music please visit:
www.danfogel.org
Pete Fallico, January 2006
