Hi, all small organ aficionados.
A few days I stumbled on YouTube across Nadia Weintraub's rendition of
Billy Mayerl's "The Jazz Master." I thought to myself, "This might be
possible on the Alderman-Wright 26er scale," and I must say, after
having neglected that scale for too long, it was very much fun writing
chromatic scales for such a small organ!
Also, reducing a stride that spans five or six octaves on the piano to
the two to three octaves of a small organ, while still keeping at least
some of the composer's intentions alive, is an interesting task, albeit
I had to drop a few of Mayerl's more daring chords.
Maybe someone else will get some joy out of my rendition of "The Jazz
Master":
http://www.haraldmmueller.de/arr26_en.htm
It is the last piece in the "Jazz" section of the webpage. Please
forgive the sub-optimal recording, made using just a laptop.
By the way, Nadia Weintraub needed two minutes fifteen seconds for the
whole piece; I couldn't do it in less than three full minutes, even
though I go mechanical.
Harald M. Mueller
Grafing near Munich
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