IAJO

IAJO The International Archives for the Jazz Organ
 
I run the web site for the IAJO.
 
It was in the 70's that I started to collect jazz organ music: It was the result of my deep interest in the organ combined with my love for jazz. As a student I had lessons in church organ playing, but soon detected that a pipe organ can produce wonderful jazz - if you play it the "right" way. That was the point to listen to Fats Waller and his excellent playing of church and Wurlitzer organs. But I followed him to what was later his favorite instrument: the one and only HAMMOND ORGAN.
 
I began to listen to all these guys who detected the Hammond as to be their main instrument, above all - of course - Jimmy Smith who lit my jazz organ fire in such a way that till today I have still not lost my love for both the JAZZ and the ORGAN.
 
As I mentioned I collected these hot discs of Jimmy The Big, "Brother" Jack, Shirley The Gentle Lady, Larry etc. And the more I got of these LPs the more I found missing in my collection. Today I keep a list of LPs and CDs which I am steadily looking for. As time went by my collection grew to more than 10,000 titles of organ jazz music. I have however to point out that not only star musicians can be found but also those side men who do a rather good job on the organ and sometimes can be heard as one of many only. Also typical piano players who only occasionally play the organ found entrance into my collection.
 
And what about the organ itself: Most of the music is made on the legendary HAMMOND, but of course other keyboard instruments as "electric organ" or "Wurlitzer organ" are considered. A special place is given to the pipe or church organ: A relatively small range of players, especially in Belgium, Germany, Norway and Sweden, have shown that excellent jazz can be made on such instruments - mostly a totally different kind of jazz compared with the funky, impulsive way of "Hammond jazz", more contemplative and sensitive, a kind of its own, worth listening to.
 
As a base for such a comprehensive collection I decided to found The International Archives For The Jazz Organ. Their aims are defined as follows:
 

complete collection of jazz organ music cataloguing the contents providing informations about both the records and the musicians

 
Please visit my web site www.iajo.org
 
where you can find
- informations on jazz organ
- organ players
- their records
- new releases
- the jazz organ scene worldwide
- articles about the jazz organ
- jazz links
- gig dates
- jazz organ galleries
- MP3 samples