Kimball, Chicago

Today, I was able to drag bandmates Jeff and Adam from MBO out to my parents' East Bay house to help save a beautiful Kimball antique pump organ from the dump heap. This instrument has been in my family for the past 25 years or so and was not really used much by anyone anymore. My dad let me know a few weeks ago that he had a guy coming to haul it away, and that got my immediate attention.

My dad plays jazz and just didn't know what to do with it, and my mom sometimes played classical music on it. Mostly, it sat in their office, looking good. My dream is to create thick, organic ambient music with it.

Fortunately, Jeff knew what he was doing and had dollies ready for the move. We were able to get the 250 lb piece on to Jeff's truck relatively easily and then lugged it back to the West Oakland rehearsal space.

Man, it's a beautiful piece. It's ornate with intricate woodwork throughout, has 17 pull-stops (with names like Violetta, Bourdon, Diapson Bass, etc), and baffle levers for the knees to "open up" the sound. It has a "Sub Bass" pull-stop which has tremendous fundamental and a "Treble Coupler" which doubles notes played by the right hand. And it's fairly in tune. Based on a little research, it dates from 1890-1910. It sounds fantastic and will definitely be used on MBO and Air King recordings.