Showtime! Tom Hazleton Available on CD CD $17 Quantity:   UK Customers Only (PPD): CD 12 GBP Quantity:

 

To hear samples of the tracks on this cd, click on the track names below.
(The player will continue to play each sample in sequence after your selection - click the pause or close button on the player to stop it)

There’s No Business Like Show Business - from Annie Get Your Gun ¹
Oklahoma Medley ²
Carousel Medley ²
Fiddler on the Roof Medley ³
Hair Medley ⁴
Ain’t Misbehavin’ Medley ²
There But For You Go I / Almost Like Being In Love - from Brigadoon ⁴
George Gershwin Show Tunes Medley ²

1 Stoneham Town Hall Wurlitzer
2 Pasadena Civic (Foort) Moller)
3 Redwood City Cap’n’s Galley Wurlitzer
4 Avenue Theatre San Francisco Wurlitzer
 

More Than 58 Minutes of Music

TOM HAZLETON
On a Friday evening in August 1966, Tom Hazleton presented the premier performance of a fine theater pipe organ at the Avenue Theater in San Francisco, where four of the items on this CD were recorded. Tom was a top flight classical as well as theater organist, one of the few in the world so rated.

Not until the late 1950s was Tom first introduced to theater pipe organs, the massive Wurlitzers in San Francisco’s California and Paramount theaters. He was the last staff organist of the Paramount before its demolition in 1965. He also served as deputy organist at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, where he played for the cathedral’s dedication. Tom was named "Organist of the Year" in 1986 by the American Theater Organ Society. For over 13 years he was Organist and Associate Director of Music at the Menlo Park, CA, Presbyterian Church and was formerly Professor of Organ at the University of the Pacific.

Tom concertized worldwide but most often at the Cap’n’s Galley Pizza and Pipes in Redwood City, CA, where he was resident organist for many years and revealed a completely different side of his musical ability. Following Redwood City he resided for twenty years in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, where he was a design consultant to major organ manufacturers. He remained active as a church and concert organist to his untimely death in March 2006.

ABOUT THE ORGANS
The organ in Stoneham Town Hall was built by Wurlitzer in 1928. Ralph Patch purchased it from WNAC (now WRKO) and donated it to the town in 1942. The organ is one of only 49 known to be unmodified from when it was originally built. The organ is now in the midst of its first major overhaul, and much work remains to be done. Of course money is needed to restore the organ to excellent condition and the Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of ATOS would welcome any help it can get in this regard.

The Redwood City organ came from the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle and had originally 18 ranks but was substantially enlarged and improved by the famed organ voicer Ed Stout and his crew to 27 ranks. The Avenue Theater organ began its life at the State Lake Theater in Chicago as a late model Wurlitzer, Style 235, 3 manuals and 13 ranks, from where it was purchased by Vern Gregory, co-owner of the Avenue. Several ranks were added later. This organ was also installed by Ed Stout. The dedication of the organ in its new home was in 1966, played by Tom. Claire Elgin bought the Avenue organ to ensure its survival in the theater. After the Avenue Theater's owner died the organ was moved to the Towne Theater in San Jose for a period, then was removed and stored. In 2005 the organ was moved to Florida and installed in Stephen Brittain’s studio in Fort Myers, where it still sings.

The five-manual Moller was designed and built for British organist Reginald Foort, who toured with it round the vaudeville theaters in England. When the BBC’s Compton organ was destroyed in the 2nd World War blitz Foort offered his Moller to replace it and it was installed in a studio in North Wales and broadcast daily by BBC staff organist Sandy MacPherson. Following the war it was re-installed in a disused church in Hoxton, East London from whence it was broadcast daily. It was later removed and travelled to Holland where it was installed in radio station VARA studio in Hilversum. From there it was bought by Sandy Fleet who installed it in a pizza parlor in San Diego after re-furbishing by the Moller factory. When the pizza parlor closed the organ was bought by J. B. Nethercutt of Merle Norman cosmetics, who donated the instrument to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium where it was installed by the late Dave Junchen in 1980 with a new Trousdale solid state combination action. Tom Hazleton played the opening concert, and Reginald Foort was in the sold-out audience. ABOUT THE RECORDING This recording features live performances with audiences. Therefore, some of the recording contains extraneous noises such as piston changes and audience coughs or sneezes which often could not be removed without damaging the integrity of the music.