This album is an homage to the theater organ idols of my youth, and is the product of listening to and being moved by their artistry and hoping to emulate them through my own playing and arranging. The albums “Autumn Nocturne” and “Modern Pipe Organ” by Buddy Cole who was a studio musician, pianist/organist to Bing Crosby and Henry Mancini, were recorded on his studio Wurlitzer/Robert Morton theater organ. These remain the most beautifully arranged and played, most perfect recordings ever made on a theater pipe organ. Tunes 1-12 are an emulation of Buddy’s arranging style, rooted in the big orchestra popular music and Hollywood film scores styles of the 50’s-60’s. Imagine that these tunes are from a third release on the studio organ, a “Romance Under the Stars” themed set. Jesse Crawford was once the most famous theatre organist in America. He called himself a frustrated singer, and his early playing was usually in a more leisurely soft shoe vaudeville style, rather than that of the frenetic dance bands of the 1920’s. From 1925 to 27, he recorded Walter Donaldson’s “My Blue Heaven,” “At Sundown,” and “Just Like a Melody Out of the Sky,” at the Wurlitzer showroom in Chicago, but not Donaldson’s “Sam, the Old Accordion Man.” This arrangement addresses that omission 90 years later. It was recorded in 1980 on the perfect 10 rank Wurlitzer from the Rosemary Theatre, Ocean Park Pier, California, installed and maintained in the home of Marguerite Hendrickson by organ builder, owner, player, and genius Ken Kukuk. In 1929, Reginald Foort recorded “The Voice in the Old Village Choir” on the Regal, Kingston Wurlitzer with a male quarter. What if, instead, Jesse Crawford had recorded it while on tour, at the New Empire Cinema, London? Before Fats Waller was a world famous stride pianist, entertainer, recording and film star, as teenage Thomas Waller, he recorded the world’s first, perhaps only, jazz pipe organ solos for Victor, at their Camden, New Jersey studio, the converted Trinity Church, on an Estey pipe organ Victor installed there for recording. As he apparently never recorded “Lady Be Good” as an organ solo, here is what Fats might have sounded like if he had. After the great triumvirate of English organists Sidney Torch, Quentin MacLean, and Reginald Foort, my favorite English theatre organist is the well recorded and much admired Joseph Seal, who broadcasted frequently from the A.B.C., Kingston on Thames Wurlitzer in programs of popular light music including your favorites old and new. He was always dignified but never dull, managing the seemingly impossible task of playing melodies on the Posthorn rank appropriately and tastefully. Although I have not found that he ever did so, perhaps Joe Seal would have liked to remind us of a few of the many tunes introduced by Fred Astaire. The ear tickling glockenspiel and traps (percussion) dominated Leon Berry recordings at the Hub Rink and his “Beast in the Basement” Wurlitzers were staples of 1950’s and 60’s High Fidelity audio conventions and shows and sold extremely well. Many are still available today in reissue. Thanks to organ builder Dave Junchen, I spent a wonderful evening with the gracious and affable Leon and Mildred Berry in 1990, where I played Leon Berry’s Beast in what I hoped would be vintage Hub Rink style. Tunes 17-20 are from the videotape of that memorable evening. “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” is from French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy’s “Children’s Corner Suite,” and is an evocation of his young daughter’s favorite doll. I surmise he composed it after hearing the American popular song “Smoky Mokes.” This was recorded at an ATOS organ crawl in 1978 on the perfectly restored, totally original and unaltered 6 rank Robert Morton theater organ from the Oxnard Theatre, Oxnard, California, installed by Glen Spelman of Van Nuys for Mrs. Spelman. On a Tuesday night in the early 1970’s, somewhere in America, a theatre organist is holding forth on a pizza restaurant installation, attempting to keep younger patrons at bay by attempting a mix of soft rock, current Broadway, and space movie themes for increasingly restive listeners requesting guitar-based hits. Two young patrons have just requested “Proud Mary,” from rock band “Credence Clearwater Revival.” He looks at the melody in his “Hits of the 70’s” songbook, realizes he has heard the song multiple times in various places, and decides to improvise an arrangement. He is deeply steeped in the theatre organ LP’s of his own youth, and although not that much older than the two patrons, he occupies a different musical universe. Gamely, he launches into the performance recreated here. Except as noted, all tunes were recorded on the former Hollywood Pig’n Whistle Restaurant 2 manual, 11 rank Wurlitzer, purchased from First Christian Church of North Hollywood, CA in 1972, first restored and installed by Dave Junchen in 1989, later reinstalled in its present location in 1997 and serviced by fine technician, organist, and lifelong friend Greg Rister of Rister Pipe Organs; and recently serviced and rescued by Greg Rister and Ken Kukuk, to whom I am deeply grateful. It is in an acoustically live building behind our home. Thanks also to many others who have assisted and supported this decades long project, especially the family of Bob Pasalich, for innumerable kindnesses great and small. A moment to thank and remember fondly my only organ teacher Gordon Kibbee, organ scribe Stu Green, who probably would have gotten a kick out of this; and my parents, who paid for the initial purchase when I was a starving student. Much thanks and appreciation to producer, recording engineer, cover art designer and son Charlie Rosen, of whom I am in awe. Most of all, thanks to my wonderful wife for loving me and consenting to Wurlitzerhood for her entire adult life. This recording, the organ, and the installation, would have been impossible without her.