Paramount! New York The Final Concert Don Baker at the New York Wurlitzer Available on CD CD $17 Quantity:   UK Customers Only (PPD): CD 12 GBP Quantity:

1 Daybreak – Grofe
2 Chicago – Kander
3 Rose Marie – Friml
4 The Exodus - Gold
5 Tea For Two – Youmans
6 Theme From The Apartment – Williams
7 Green Leaves of Summer – Tiomkin
8 Irish Washerwoman – Traditional
9 Danny Boy – Traditional
10 The Continental – Conrad
11 The Sound of Music – Rodgers
12 My Favorite Things – Rodgers
13 I Love A Parade – Arlen
14 Baby Face – Davis
15 Dancing Tambourine – Gould
16 All The Things You Are – Kern
17 Song Of India - Rimsky-Korsakov
18 Hello Young Lovers – Rodgers
19 When Yuba Played The Rhumba On The Tuba – Romans
20 Lover Come Back To Me – Romberg
21 Seventy-Six Trombones – Wilson
22 Speech By Don Baker
23 Auld Lang Syne - Traditional

The New York Paramount

At the original opening, The New York Times ran the first ad, describing "an acre of seats in a palace of splendor." The flagship house of the Paramount- Publix chain was an architectural triumph. At the closing,  when Adolf Zukor saw his grand Paramount Theatre with its doors locked and marquee empty, he stood on the sidewalk and wept.

The huge Wurlitzer pipe organ, which provided music and accompaniment of silent films, was destined to become probably the most famous instrument in the world. The "Dowager Empress," as the organ was affectionately named by organists, was a four manual, 36-rank "orchestra", with thousands of pipes and a second console. Statistically, it was one of the five biggest instruments Wurlitzer ever built - 33 tons of wooden and metal pipes. Musically, it was ranked at the top, with much credit for that achievement given to the legendary organist Jesse Crawford, lured away from the Chicago Theatre, who dictated in part how the organ was built and installed, and also to the man who voiced, regulated, and tended the organ all its 38 years at the Paramount, Dan Papp.

The Final Concert

The final organ concert took place on September 27th, 1964. Excerpts from this concert appeared on the Pipe Organ Presentations recent CD release called Paramount!, along with selections from the Brooklyn Paramount. The original master tape used was provided by Bill Johnson of Concert recording and had been the source for the Concert Recording L.P. release Farewell to the Paramount. At the time, this was the only source material available to P.O.P., which was heavily edited to fit the length of an LP, approximately 34 minutes. Unfortunately the medleys suffered, and there were a number of unfortunate edits which left the listener hanging, waiting for a seventh chord to resolve. However we at P.O.P felt that the recording was of such significance that it merited a place in our “Archival Treasures” collection.

After the release of the first Paramount! CD we at P.O.P. were delighted to receive an offer from Bernie McGorrey of Pennsylvania to provide us with an original tape of the complete concert and we were excited on listening to note that not only did the tape contain the additional half hour of music that we had never heard, but also that it was of considerably superior quality to the original Concert Recording tape. All the unfortunate edits were absent.

The result is a truly thrilling experience for the listener. It was, of course, a live performance with a highly enthusiastic audience so there are a few coughs and extraneous noises. Organist Jeff Barker, who was there and played in the open console prior to Baker’s performance, tells us that the balcony was full of people with tape recorders and others walking about and clearly in “Exodus” the mike on this particular recording was disturbed, causing severe distortion. Using digital computer editing we have done our best and labored to minimize the flaw but you may hear a slight diminution of quality for a couple of seconds (as well as the sound of the mike falling!). We hope that this one minor flaw will not substantially affect your enjoyment of this occasion, our previous CD of which Theatre Organ record reviewer Stanley Hightower describes as “a priceless disc which bears witness to an electrifying farewell performance. It’s all classic latter-day Don Baker, a bravura display.”