It’s a mechanical, hand-operated organ instrument first manufactured in the late 1870s playing music from perforated paper, cardboard, or metal disks on wooden rolls or “cobs” that clunkily and rather beautifully captures another era. The air pressure or vacuum to create the sound is produced by hand-, crank- or foot-operated mechanical bellows.
Key manufacturers included McTammany of Cambridge MA, the Autophone Company of Ithaca NY, the Automatic Organ Co of Boston MA, E.P. Needham & Sons of New York NY, J.M. Draper of Blackburn, England, Paul Ehrlich & Co. of Leipzig Germany, and The Mechanical Orguinette Co. of New York. Its popularity gradually declined as the phonograph, also known as gramophone or record player, was introduced in the 1890s and became more affordable, but its sound and design, while limited by the music imprinted on the rolls, is undeniable charming, even as it disappeared from homes and streets by the 1920s.
Created in different designs, from the most basic, the hand-squeeze 22-note Autophone, invented by Henry B. Horton in 1878, to the 32-note cabinet Autophone with an up-down metal pump handle and optional foot pump, the Gem Roller with a hand crank and an air pressure or vacuum system, the 32-note Grand Roller, the most expensive Mandolina, Celestina, Symphonia and Orchestrone and Musette models, the German revolving disk Ariston of 16, 19, 24 or 36 notes, the musical casket, Tournaphone, and the rare gem-style “Chautauqua”, a free gift with five cobs of music if you bought $10 worth of soap. Now that’s a clean deal.
So then, let’s enjoy a selection of several types in action and a variety of authentic jazz, classical and musical hall numbers.
While the word itself, of either spelling is hard to find in song lyrics, there are many references to street sellers with the instrument, and of course the accompanying metaphor based around organ grinder and monkey, pertaining to who controls whom.
Recorded in 1928, Organ Grinder Blues with Ethel Waters and accompanied on piano by Clarence Williams uses the metaphor with a less then ambiguous angle …
Organ grinder, organ grinder
Organ grinder, play that melody
Take your organ, grinder, and grind some more for me
Grind it north, grind it north
Grind it north, grind it east or west
But when you grind it slow, that's when I like it best
Organ grinder, organ grinder
You don't have to pass your hat around any more
'Cause you're just the grinder I've been waitin' for
Prince was never shy of an innuendo himself, and here with The New Power Generation also gives us 1991’s Violet the Organ Grinder, part of the Gett Off release.
I am Violet the Organ Grinder
And I grind all the live long day
I live for the organ, that I am grinding
I'll die, but I won't go away
Organ Grinder’s Swing, composed in the 1930s by Will Hudson, with lyrics credited to Mitchell Parish and Irving Mills has become something of a jazz classic, recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, first with Savoy Eight and later Count Basie, with other versions by Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman and more artists. Here’s a 1937 recording by the amazing Mills Brothers, who mimic instruments as well as sing:
Who's that coming down the street?
Good old organ grinder Pete
He's the latest rhythm king
With his organ grinder's swing
When he turns that handle down
Music goes around and 'round
Everybody starts to sing
To that organ grinder's swing
The song, and instrument, also inspired a 1937 Pope cartoon short with the usual dose of slapstick violence, with a fight over the organ grinder, but a musical ending:
Organ Grinder Swing is also an excellent 1965 jazz organ album by Jimmy Smith. Here’s the title track.
The ever-present monkey-organ grinder relationship, particularly in a boss-employee context, is picked up in the song Punish The Monkey by Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler:
The boss has hung you out to dry
And it looks as though
Punish the monkey
And let the organ grinder go
The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia describes the organ grinder in more musical terms in Love in the Afternoon:
Love, love in the afternoon
Outside the window an organ grinder's tune
Rhythm, wine; touch of Jamaica, twilight time with a Kingston lady
All the time in the world for me and that girl
Sweet, she sang sweetly; come back soon
Come back for more of that love in the afternoon
Breezes blow by me in the afternoon
She sings sweetly an organ grinder's tune
Finally recovered from last year's round of bye bye baby blues
All I crave today some love in the afternoon
Love, love in the afternoon
It's easy as she goes, like an organ grinder's tune
Bob Dylan meanwhile uses the organ grinder as a passing image in the upbeat love song I Want You:
The guilty undertaker sighs
The lonesome organ grinder cries
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn
But it's not that way
I wasn't born to lose you
I want you, I want you
I want you so bad
Honey, I want you
And on an more experimental note, there’s mention of the controlling organ grinder on hip hop’s Buck 65’s Hats On Beds:
Shoot the messenger, measure his wingspan.
The organ grinders had the whole thing planned.
There are many other organ grinder references as well as organette-inspired songs. Care to grind out a few? Please feel free to share any further examples in songs, instrumentals, on albums, film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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