San Francisco is getting organ-ized

Is San Francisco losing its soul?

While the city is increasingly buffeted by the social and economic forces unleashed by AI, an old-school analog instrument is ensuring that a foundational force in funk, R&B, gospel and soul jazz continues to thrive.

At the present date, there are at least six San Francisco venues that prominently feature the Hammond B3 organ, a resurgence that speaks to the enduring appeal of a sound rooted in the Black church, neighborhood joints, and jukeboxes.

“When it comes to the B3, I would use the phrase ‘re-emerging,’” said KCSM DJ Pete Fallico, an indefatigable champion of the B3 via his Jazz Organ Fellowship nonprofit. “Not even New York City has as many clubs with organs. We’re holding our own in terms of the reemergence.”

The latest venue to install a B3 is the recently reopened Deluxe in the Haight, where keyboardist Steve Lucky has parked his instrument for the foreseeable future.

“I bought that organ specifically to live in a bar to encourage more organ jazz gigs,” he said, noting that technically it’s a Hammond A-100, “which is the same as a B3, but in a different cabinet.”

Lucky and the Rhumba Bums reunite with his Hammond Aug. 28.

The Deluxe’s proprietor Jay Bordeleau is also working on acquiring an organ for his other venue, the Hayes Valley supper club Mr. Tipple’s, where he’s showcasing many of the Bay Area’s finest B3 practitioners Aug. 27-30.

The run kicks off Thursday with two shows by the Adam Shulman Organ Trio. Though best known as a pianist for his work with bandleaders like bassist Marcus Shelby and vocalist Paula West, he’s become one of the top B3 players in town.

Shulman is back at Tipple’s on Friday for two early shows with saxophonist Patrick Wolff’s Swinging Organ Quartet, followed by two shows featuring the Adam Klipple Soul Quintet. An accomplished organist who’s toured with Blood, Sweat & Tears, Klipple introduced his B3 prowess to many Bay Area jazz fans at the 2022 Monterey Jazz Festival when he backed glam-jazz vocalist Veronica Swift.

Saturday’s program features a one-two Oaktown punch to the soul-er plexus with the mighty LJ Holoman Trio playing the early shows and the great Sundra Manning handling the late shows.

He’s known for his work with Raphael Saadiq, Joss Stone, Tony!Toni!Toné!, Mary J Blige, 50 Cent and The Game, while she played a key role in Ledisi’s Grammy Award-laden rise to R&B stardom.

The Tipple’s run concludes Sunday with two shows by the Roger Glenn Organ Trio with Wayne De La Cruz at the keys. The prodigious leader is a Latin jazz expert who plays vibes, flute and alto sax, and the group toured as opening act for Steely Dan a few years back. That’s a whole lot of B3 packed into four nights, a more-is-more strategy built on the instrument’s widespread appeal.

It’s the third year Bordeleau has presented a block of B3 dates in late August, timed to counteract the ripple effect of Burning Man week, “which creates a slight lull in San Francisco nightlife,” he said.

Looking to economize, Bordeleau planned to book organ trios, figuring B3 combos provided the most bang for the buck. With six different bands, the plans to economize “went out the window,” he said. “It turns out that leaning into more talent brings out more people.”

No instrument represents jazz’s populist roots more vividly than the Hammond B3 organ, which first rolled into music stores in 1953.

Quickly adopted by Baptist churches, it became a force in the jazz world a few years later with the arrival of the virtuosic Jimmy Smith, whose prolific recordings for Blue Note Records opened up a whole new genre with his tasty combination of bebop and blues.

A flood of B3 practitioners followed in Smith’s footsteps. The best of them — Brother Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Big John Patton, Jimmy McGriff, Shirley Scott, Larry Young and Charles Earland­ — put out hundreds of records that could be heard in urban bars in Black neighborhoods.

Along with jukeboxes, these working-class joints often featured a B3 for local talent and traveling organ combos.

The instrument became a staple in R&B and the rising soul music movement, associated particularly with Stax Records. Rock acts loved the B3’s huge sonic output, and it was effectively deployed by Santana and prog rock bands like Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

But with the proliferation of more portable keyboards, the bulky B3 fell out of fashion and by 1975 it was no longer in production.  

When Simon Rowe launched his North Beach club Keys Jazz Bistro about four years ago, he knew he wanted to procure an organ, which is no longer an easy or inexpensive proposition.

“In short order, I got in touch with Pete Fallico, and we were able to wrestle one of his mint-condition B3s,” said Rowe, a fine organist himself who performs late sets at Keys every Saturday night.  

With its well-maintained instrument Keys has become San Francisco’s unofficial B3 headquarters. Leading players like Atsuko Hashimoto and Midori Ono, who were both born and raised in Osaka and live in New York City, have played the venue, as has Tony Monaco, who hails from Philadelphia, the nation’s B3 capitol.

Wil Blades, a longtime creative force on the Bay Area music scene who moved to Los Angeles shortly before the pandemic, plays the club every few months, often with vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Otis McDonald (aka Joe Bagale).  

On Aug. 27, Fallico’s Doodlin’ Lounge presents two shows at Keys with the great Detroit organist Gerard Gibbs in a rare Bay Area performance with Motor City drummer Dr. Prof. Leonard King and Oakland saxophone maestro Howard Wiley (a close confederate of veteran Bay Area organist Chester “CT” Thompson).

Other SF clubs with B3s include the Boom Boom Room and the Madrone Art Bar, where Adam Shulman plays a set every Sunday followed by a jam session. But the club that fully embraces the B3’s dive bar proclivities is the Royal Cuckoo, which features an A-100 Hammond built into the bar.

Serving as headquarters for keyboardist Chris Siebert and vocalist Lavay Smith, whose brother owns the joint, the Cuckoo features music seven nights a week, with a regular rotation of organists holding forth joined by an array of vocalists and horn players.

Opened in 2010, the Cuckoo was modeled on the Green Mill, a storied Chicago jazz club with an organ behind the bar. When Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers performed there in the early aughts the club owner asked if Chicago organ great Chris Forman could sit in.

They wondered about the logistics, but when the band launched into “St. Louis Blues,” Siebert recalls, “a spotlight came down and it was like ‘Phantom of the Opera.’ Forman is like 20 feet away from us, and he unleashes this huge, swinging sound. It was a life-changing, soul-nourishing moment.”

Siebert had been looking for opportunities to start playing organ ever since. When the Royal Cuckoo opened he and Smith seized the opportunity, and he took initial lessons from David K. Matthews, a veteran practitioner who spent years touring with Tower of Power and Etta James before replaced Chester Thompson in Santana.

“It took two or three sessions just to learn how to turn one on,” Siebert said. “There’s a whole sequence you have to follow.”

These days, he holds down Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the Cuckoo playing solo, with a rotating cast of Skillet Lickers joining the proceedings later in the week. He’s come to love supplying bass lines, which the B3 can generate with foot pedals.

“When I’m playing Hammond, I control volume, harmony, the tonal palette,” Siebert said. “It’s an orchestra. A piano is an orchestra too, but it’s very rare to see a pianist functioning as a bassist. I love all the colors you can get out of the Hammond.”

Painting with shades both sanctified and carnal, the Hammond B3 organ is keeping San Francisco nightlife grounded with cadences unreachable by any algorithm.