A few days ago, I got really excited when I was working the daily crossword puzzle in our local newspaper. The clue was a 9-letter word for “Choir accompanists.” Easy!

Yet, in addition to being merely “Choir accompanists,” organists can also be teachers or recitalists, or chamber musicians who play with other instrumentalists or vocalists. I’ve done it all.

In the last couple of weeks, our nation has been consumed with the death of George Floyd, who died at the hands of the Minneapolis police. Four days ago, at his memorial service in Minneapolis, I heard the organist in an entirely different role—that of a commentator. It was during the Rev. Al Sharpton’s eulogy that we heard the organist punctuate his words with musical snippets, and in this way, he was commenting on the text through music—functioning in the same way as a “Greek chorus.”

Wikipedia defines it as “The chorus in Classical Greek drama was a group of actors who described and commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation. Greek tragedy had its beginnings in choral performances, in which a group of 50 men danced and sang dithyrambs—lyric hymns in praise of the god Dionysus.

I’ve cued up this YouTube video to the section where the organist’s comments were particularly noticeable, especially in this part of the eulogy:

Reverend Al Sharpton: (14:48)
Years ago, I went to march. Now I remember a young white lady looked me right in the face and said, “N*****, go home.” But when I was here last Thursday and Ms. Carr and I was headed back to the airport I stopped near the police station, and as I was talking to a reporter, a young white girl, she didn’t look no older than 11 years old. She tagged my suit jacket and I looked around and I braced myself, and she looked at me and said, “No justice, no peace.” It’s a different time. It’s a different season, and if my Bible carrying guy in front of that boarded up church, if I got him to open up the Bible, I want you to remember something. You know I was late last October to an appointment because the time changed and I was still … My watch was on the wrong time. Once a year time goes forward and if you don’t

Reverend Al Sharpton: (16:02)
Yeah, time goes forward. And if you don’t Congresswoman Omar, move your watch, you going to find yourself a hour late. Not because your watch was wrong, but you had your watch on the wrong time. Well, I come to tell you that their sitting in Washington talking about militarizing the country, thinking that you can sell Wolf tickets to people. Who’s had enough of abuse. I’ve come to tell you, you can get on the TV, but you on the wrong time, time is out for not holding you accountable. Time is out for you making excuses. Time is out for you trying to stall. Time is out for empty words and empty promises. Time is out for you filibustering and trying to stall the arm of justice. This is the time we won’t stop. We going to keep going until we change the whole system of justice.

Did you hear how the organist was improvising after Rev. Al said “No justice, no peace?” And then how about that “Time out” section? He was almost playing a duet with the minister at that time, and they were in a dance of words and music.

It’s a whole tradition which is new to me, the role of the organist in gospel music. In fact, I found a whole article about “How the Hammond Organ Sound Laid the Tracks for Gospel’s Hit Train.” Apparently it started in 1939 when a black pastor, Clarence Cobbs, brought a Hammond organ into his church, the First Church of Deliverance in Chicago.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

... And when people heard the strange new sounds of the Hammond organ on the radio, they were so intrigued that, just as Reverend Cobbs hoped, they headed to his church to hear more... The Hammond’s warm, warbling sound quickly spread to churches beyond Chicago, the perfect soundtrack for a brand-new genre called gospel.

The Hammond Organ company went out of business years ago, but apparently the Hammond name was purchased by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. They proceeded to manufacture digital simulations of the most popular tonewheel organs, and in 2002, produced the “New B-3,” a recreation of the original B-3 organ using digital technology.

Hey, did you know that the first organ I learned on was a Hammond?