Today in History - Hammond patents the organ, Jimmy Smith takes us "Into the Night"

  So on this day in 1934, a patent was issued for the pipeless organ to Laurens Hammond. From Wikipedia:

Laurens Hammond (January 11, 1895 – July 3, 1973), was an American engineer and inventor. His inventions include, most famously, the Hammond organ, the Hammond Clock, and the world's first polyphonic musical synthesizer, the Novachord.   In 1933, he bought a used piano and proceeded to discard everything apart from the actual keyboard action. Using this piano keyboard as a controller, he was able to experiment with various sound generating methods until he found the best one—the tonewheel generator. The company's assistant treasurer, W. L. Lahey, was the organist at the nearby St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, and so Laurens consulted with him during the design process and sought feedback on the quality of the new instrument's sound. With all his previous manufacturing and engineering experience, the tonewheel generator was incredibly well engineered by the time the organ finally went into production. The number of tonewheel organs still in regular use is a testament in itself to the quality of the original design and execution of the product.   Laurens filed his patent on January 19, 1934. At this time, unemployment was a major problem due to the Great Depression, and with this in mind, the patents office rushed to grant Hammond's application,[2] with the hope of creating job opportunities in the area. He was awarded the Franklin Institute's John Price Wetherill Medal in 1940 for the invention of the Hammond electric organ Full Biography

You can read more about the birth of the Hammond Organ here! Now with all this said, the real reason that I posted this is so that I can go "Into the Night" with Jimmy Smith! here's a performance of the classic "Moanin'" Seems like both Jimmy and the crowd were having a good time!!

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