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Pearl White was an American silent-era theatre organist and piano player who worked in the Chicago area.
She was born Pearl Eleanor Weiss on October 26, 1910, and at age three, was recognized as a child prodigy on the keyboard. At age four, she sang, danced and played concert grand at Chicago's Majestic (Shubert) Theatre. As a child, she studied piano with Rudolph Gantz and Florence LeClare.
At age eleven she studied with Robert Bing at Glen Dillard Gunn School in Chicago's Fine Arts Building and Jessica Wiley at the Bush Conservatory of Music on the North Side. Her early studies on organ were with Edward Benedict in the Kimball building and Dean Fossler at the Gunn School.
Miss White first played organ professionally at age 13 at the Virginia Theatre and later at the Echo Theater in Des Plaines. Al Carny, organist for station WCFL, recommended her for her next position—cutting master piano rolls in Chicago for the Capitol Music Roll Company. From 1925 to 1932, White cut more than 100 rolls (sample roll on YouTube) which appeared on labels such as Capitol, Imperial, Supertone, American and Columbia. As the Capitol company also made rolls for many coin-operated nickelodeon and orchestrion type instruments, many of her performance also survive in this format, with added orchestration from instruments built into these coin-operated instruments (such as drums, pipes, etc.) She also worked as substitute organist at the Uptown, Tivoli, Granada, Belmont and Embassy Theatres around this time.
White played the North Center Theatre from 1928 to 1932 and also had a six-week run at the Chicago Theatre.
As the need for organists in theaters diminished with the arrival of sound pictures, Pearl White began to perform on radio, first appearing on WBBM in 1929. In 1944 she joined the full-time staff of WIND providing background music and was also heard on WCFL. She was also considered to be an accomplished musical arranger and provided arrangements to the Phil Harris orchestra among others. The hallmark of her hard-driving jazz style is interlocking chords alternating between the right and left hands which she dubbed "double stuff".
White enjoyed a renaissance late in her career when theatre organs were removed from failing, aged theatres and installed in alternate venues. She performed with Al Melgard at Chicago Stadium on the giant Barton organ in 1962 and was featured artist at the 1964 American Theatre Organ Society's Convention on YouTube in Shea's Theatre in Buffalo. She also played for the Chicago Area Organ Enthusiasts' conventions of 1965 and 1969 and provided organ accompaniment at silent film revival showings and made guest appearances at the Elm Skating Rink.
Despite a long and successful musical career, Pearl White made only one commercial recording showcasing the blazingly fast jazz technique for which she earned the nickname, "The Fireball". Entitled "Pearl White in Nostalgia and Flame", it was made at the Patio Theatre in Chicago in 1968 on her own label.
Pearl White died on May 11, 1978. She was inducted into the American Theatre Organ Society Hall of Fame in 1991.
Barbara Dennerlein is a German jazz organist. She has achieved critical acclaim for using the bass pedalboard on a Hammond organ and for integrating synthesizer sounds onto the instrument, and was described by critic Ron Wynn as "the most interesting jazz organist to emerge during the 1980s".
A theatre organ is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s.
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the United States. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success, largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880, the company began manufacturing pianos and eventually relocated to North Tonawanda, New York. It quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, player pianos and pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies.
M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte (1807–1880) in 1832.
Richard Simonton, also known under the pseudonym Doug Malloy, was a Hollywood businessman and entrepreneur, known for his involvement in the Hollywood community, his rescue of the steamboat Delta Queen, his work in preserving the work of musicians in the Welte-Mignon piano rolls and for founding the American Theatre Organ Society. Among piercing enthusiasts he is also known as an early pioneer of the contemporary resurgence in body piercing.
George Wright was an American musician, possibly the most famous virtuoso of the theatre organ of the modern era.
The Bartola Musical Instrument Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA, was a producer of theater pipe organs during the age of silent movies.
Rhoda Scott is an American soul jazz organist and singer. She is nicknamed "The Barefoot Lady".
Jesse Crawford was an American pianist and organist. He was well known in the 1920s as a theatre organist for silent films and as a popular recording artist. In the 1930s, he switched to the Hammond organ and became a freelancer. In the 1940s, he authored instruction books on organ and taught organ lessons.
James Harrell McGriff was an American hard bop and soul-jazz organist and organ trio bandleader.
Dennis James is an American musician and historic preservationist. Beginning in 1969, he presented historically informed live accompaniments for silent films, with piano, theatre organ, chamber ensemble and full symphony orchestras, throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and overseas. He is now primarily active as a noted multi-instrumentalist, specializing on Franklin glass armonica and the theremin, prominently performing in New York at the Metropolitan Opera, for Hollywood film scorings, and repeat performances at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival plus performing at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing the intricate glass armonica complete part in the U.S. debut of George Benjamin's opera "Written on Skin".
Gaylord Carter was an American organist and the composer of many film scores that were added to silent movies released on video tape or disks. He died from Parkinson's disease.
Rosa Rio was the stage name of American concert pianist Elizabeth Raub, who also provided scores and arrangement for theater, radio, television and film productions later becoming a teacher of music and voice. She started her career as a theatre performer before becoming a silent film accompanist, after which she became a leading organist on network radio and television for soap operas and dramas. In 1993 she reprised her film accompaniment career in Florida, providing the scores for early productions, some of which she had accompanied some 80 years earlier, on their release to cinema.
The photoplayer is an automatic mechanical orchestra used by movie theatres to produce photoplay music to accompany silent films.
Walt Strony is an American recording, consulting and performing organist and organ teacher, both on the theatre organ and traditional pipe organ, ranging from pizza parlors to churches and theatres to symphony orchestras.
Leonard MacClain was an American keyboardist and composer who was prominent as an organist in the Philadelphia area. He gained international exposure through his recordings for Epic Records.
Jackie Davis was an American soul jazz singer, organist and bandleader. He is notable for his contributions in bringing the Hammond organ to the forefront of jazz and pop, preceding the better-known Jimmy Smith by several years.
Reginald John Foort, FRCO, ARCM, was a cinema organist and theatre organist. He was the first official BBC Staff Theatre Organist from 1936 to 1938, during which time he made 405 broadcasts on the organ at St George's Hall, Langham Place. 'Reggie' was a hugely popular broadcaster in his heyday in the late 1930s and 1940s in Britain and later settled in the United States, where he similarly enjoyed an illustrious career performing and recording.
Roberta Piket is an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and arranger.
Hal Pearl was a Chicago-based pianist and organist. He had an over 75-year performing career and probably was the last surviving silent movie accompanist. Initially a cinema organist, Hal Pearl was first known as "Chicago's Youngest Organist" and later "The King of the Organ."
September, 1971 personal interview of Pearl White by Rodney Elliot published as supplement #6 to the Chicago Area Theatre Organ Enthusiast's newsletter, VOX. Jacket notes from LP "Pearl White in Nostalgia and Flame" released 1968 on Pearl White Recordings Label. Theatre Organ Magazine June/July 1978 pp49