As part of the documentary project, Don Feely demonstrated some of the rhythm unit percussions and sound effects (“traps”) that he purchased after the Organ Grinder’s Portland location closed and the organ was being parted out.
The Organ Grinder was innovative in many ways, one such way being that co-founder Dennis Hedberg upgraded the traditional Wurlitzer percussions to function (and look) like a modern drum kit.
Jonas Nordwall performs the “Superman March” by composer John Williams on the Mary L. Collins Organ, First United Methodist Church, Portland. (4 manuals, 111 ranks.) As part of the Organ Grinder Documentary Project, Jonas sat for an extended interview this week. At the end, he gave us a demonstration of the Mary L. Collins organ,…
Photo of Vicki Bock (colloquially known as the Organ Grinder’s “Monkey Lady”) with two good friends.
An sad and insurmountable problem for documentary producers is that, before a certain time, there was no home video – Only still photos, or if you’re very lucky, 8mm home movies. Wait, what? There’s FILM? Somebody shot professional 16mm film of the Organ Grinder in the 1970s? Why didn’t you say so!
Yesterday, we returned to the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland, Oregon. The AHC had just unearthed a set of slides from the architecture firm Martin, Soderstrom and Matteson (now Soderstrom Architects), originally co-founded by Will Martin, the architect who designed the Organ Grinder building. The slides feature the Organ Grinder building in 1973 around the…
Early in the planning stages for the first Organ Grinder, the founders used an architecture firm which specialized in restaurants and hotels. The design was very conventional – a rectangular building, with the entrance and kitchen at the front, and the organ at the back. No towering windows showing off the pipes to the street,…
This childhood drawing was provided by an Organ Grinder fan who spent hours creating elaborate scenes of their dream pipe organ. This instrument has everything – note the inclusion of not one, but two pianos!