Brian Charette grew up in Meriden playing piano in the local jazz scene starting when he was 15. Piano was still his instrument while studying music at the University of Connecticut and the University of Hartford’s Hartt School. But it’s as a Hammond organist that he’s become a well-known composer, bandleader, session musician and live performer.
“I didn’t play organ until I moved to New York,” he said. “I still play piano.”
Charette lives in Los Angeles and tours around the world, from the Czech Republic to Europe to India, but still plays New York frequently and loves venturing home to Connecticut when he can. He will be back in the Nutmeg State this week with his sextet at the Side Door Jazz Club in Old Lyme on Sept. 19 at 8 p.m.
Charette’s sextet includes a flute, alto sax, tenor sax, bass clarinet, drums plus Charette at the Hammond, which behaves “like a classical wind ensemble,” he said. Charette said he been playing the Hammond that is in permanent residence at the Side Door since the club first purchased the instrument years ago “… and I loved playing there before they had a Hammond.”
Charette noted that there are not a lot of organ players in the jazz world right now. Eclectic players such as himself are in high demand. Some of the major artists he’s played with over the years include Joni Mitchell, Chaka Khan, Paul Simon and Cyndi Lauper.
Charette has recorded dozens of albums, five this year alone. Most of them involve some sort of organ but the styles can range from big band to classical to electronica. He says the Side Door gig will feature “a taste of Messaien” (the influential French composer and organist of the mid-20th century), “some ‘Harlem Nocturne’” (the Earle Hagen composition which is often played on a Hammond) and “some reggae… I wrote a song called ‘Denge Merenge’ when I nearly got denge fever. There are three records of the sextet so there’s a lot of material. The early ones are like Messaien, then they sound like cop show themes and the recent ones are like we’re machines, very different.”
Meriden native Brian Charette, an internationally known Hammond organ player, plays the Side Door Jazz Club in Old Lyme. (Volha Talatynik)
Hammond organs have been around since the 1930s, though they’re made differently than they were originally. In the mid- and late 20th century the Hammond became associated with British blues rock and prog rock acts such as Procol Harum (“A Whiter Shade of Pale”) and Emerson Lake & Palmer. Benmont Tench, keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, often played a Hammond, as did Richard Causon of The Jayhawks.
There’s a Hammond Organ Hall of Fame which lists such famous names as “Fats” Waller (who played some of the earliest Hammonds when they were primarily theater organs), Steve Winwood, Gregg Allman, Keith Emerson, Shirley Scott, Ethel Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jon Lord of Deep Purple, Yankee Stadium organist Eddie Layton, Billy Preston, Booker T. Jones (“Green Onions”) and Al Kooper (the Blood Sweat & Tears founder who played Hammond on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”).
“It originally came out as an alternative to a pipe organ, but with a different speaker system,” Charette said. “They’re always used with a Leslie speaker and (the inventors) Hammond and Leslie didn’t even like each other.”
Charette explained that while it was prominent in theaters, the Hammond was used by jazz musicians in the 1930s and ‘40s, years before it became associated with R&B and rock ‘n’ roll.
“I really like the Dr. Lonnie Smith style,” he said. Smith, who died in 2021 at the age of 79, played with jazz guitarist George Benson and saxophonist Lou Donaldson before becoming a solo artist. “Sometimes it’s very straight ahead. Sometimes it’s more funk-oriented.”
The Side Door Jazz Club is at 85 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Tickets for the show are $49.16, $22.68 for students. For more information, go to thesidedoorjazz.com.
