The Jazz Organ Scene

USA

Dan Bellomy Dan (* 1951 in Houston, TX) began playing the organ at the age of eight. His first television performance was at the age of eleven, and he began a career as a professional musician at age twelve.   He was employed by the Thomas Organ Company as a concert artist promoting their product, and then was with Hammond Organ Company for several years in the same capacity. In 1974 he was the house organist at Casa Mañana, being the first to hold that position, and where the first two of his albums were recorded.   In 1976 he was residing in Denver, CO, and became lead organist of the Organ Grinder Restaurant's satellite location in Denver. His next stint as an organist for a "pizza and pipes" restaurant was in Los Angeles, CA, as the Great American Wind Machine. From at least 1985 to 1992 Bellomy was residing in Portland, OR. He became a house organist at the flagship Organ Grinder Restaurant in Portland, OR. Subsequently, he was a regular performer at Uncle Milt's Pizza in Vancouver, Washington. Dan was a featured performer at the 1989 American Theatre Organ Society national convention. While in the Portland metropolitan area he regularly participated in radio broadcasts and supplemented his income by teaching keyboard lessons.   From at least from 2000 to 2002 he was a resident of Boston. The year 2000 also saw him elected to the board of the American Theatre Organ Society. His career included performance tours across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.   Dan's theater organ performances were acclaimed for their inclusion of the jazz idiom, and he was at times described as a pure jazz organist. When requested to play his loudest registration selection for purposes of calibration by a recording engineer, Dan improvised a piece from scratch that wound up as the opening track on the CD. His improvisational ability was such that he only played a piece the same way on rare occasion. He was able to closely approximate the sound of a Hammond on a pipe organ, and at some concerts he switched between the pipe organ and a Hammond.   Dan's recordings and performances would include a mix of upbeat jazz numbers interspersed with opulent, passionate selections, slow in nature. His organist influences were Buddy Cole, Eddie Dunstedter, Billy Nale, Brian Rodwell, and George Wright, but he was also impacted by the vocal phrasings of Mel Tormé and Ella Fitzgerald. Dan wrote scripts for and directed several local television shows, and most notably served as music director for KNBC's show The Sunday Show. When in Boston he created his own show which ran on various local cable channels entitled The Music You Remember.   Dan died in 2008.   from Wikipedia

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