Hammond Organ

Throw on Joey DeFrancesco’s new album, More Music, and you’re met almost immediately with the sound of an organ. Of course you are; DeFrancesco’s the most celebrated jazz organist in the world—what’d you expect? But this organ, this organ player… something sounds different, more subdued—earth tones compared to the boisterous musical pastels and neons we’ve grown accustomed to hearing from DeFrancesco.

The Hammond electronic organ was developed with churches in mind, as a lower-cost alternative to pipe organs. But in Philadelphia, a keyboard player named…

As a bandleader in the 1960s and '70s, Smith wrote timeless music — and secured that label during the '80s and '90s, when hip-hop producers sampled his work left and right. NPR's Arun Rath speaks with Smith on the occasion of a new album that revives the out-of-print gems of a six-decade career.