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Can someone please pass me a baton?

Started by KB7DQH, September 15, 2011, 03:39:41 AM

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KB7DQH

QuoteFor a brief shining moment, I was Maestro.

I graced the stage of the magnificent Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet, took my seat at the regal theater organ and pounded out an emotional rendition of, quiet please, "Heart and Soul."

"Heart and soul, I fell in love with you ..." Yep, that's the tune.

Please, hold your applause while I start at the beginning.

I have absolutely zero musical talent. Call it a tin ear, call it a misspent youth, call it a lack of discipline. Whatever the reason, I can barely remember the Every Good Boy pneumonic, let alone a real scale.

So of course, I've compensated for my lack of musical talent by producing two very musical children. One plays the trumpet, the other the french horn. Both play piano and guitar.

And it was one of my dear daughters who taught me how to locate middle C on a keyboard — as good a starting point as any for performance of "Heart and Soul," the only song in my repertoire.

I never considered playing it outside the comfort of my living room but when faced with the opportunity to take a seat before the grand theater organ at the Rialto, well, how could I resist?

A theater organ is a veritable symphony rolled into a pipe organ. It can make the sound of any instrument including the tuba and the glockenspiel, and it can produce lots of sound effects, such as train whistles, quacking ducks and church chimes.

The theater organ thrived during the golden age of theater. The instruments supplied the soundtrack for silent movies and Vaudeville-like stage performers. They were one-person orchestras.

And now that silent movies are back in vogue, so are theater organs, says Jim Patak, house organist at the Rialto.

"At one time, every theater had one," Patak said. That was back during the 1920s and '30s. But over the years, as theaters were being torn down, the organs disappeared.

Now, interest is being revived. Like many theaters across the country, the Rialto recently hosted a silent movie night that featured a Buster Keaton film.

The Rialto's 85-year-old Barton Grand Theater Organ has four keyboards, four chambers and 27 ranks of pipes. It cost $10,500 to build in 1926, when the theater opened. It would cost $3 million to build today.

The air-blown instrument helps to make the Rialto one of the Top 10 theaters in the country.

The Rialto was built for a whopping
$2 million. It's easy to see how it came to be called the Jewel of Joliet.

I've sat in the audience many times but recently, I got to walk across its stage — just like Tony Bennett, Wayne Newton and Liberace, who reportedly walked out decked in a lavish, rhinestone-studded mink cape and announced to his fans, "At last, a theater to match my wardrobe."

He was, of course, referring to the Rialto's oppulent design, a blend of Italian Renaissance, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Baroque styles. Its ornate sculptures. lavish relief work and glittering chandeliers set the tone for a regal performance.

Not that mine was, by any stretch. But we'll get to that.

Hard to believe this magnificent theater faced the wrecking ball in the late '70s. Local businesses rallied to the rescue and it remains in all its glory.

So there I was, stage right. The organ sits on an elevator platform in the orchestra pit. It can be raised to stage level for performances.

On this day, it sat in the far corner at the edge of the stage, under a bright spotlight.

Patak demonstrated the instrument's many uses, tooting a Model A whistle, banging a Chinese gong and playing the theme song to "The Phantom of the Opera."

He explained how often he has to climb up five flights to do maintenance on the vast system of pipes.

"Something always needs work," he said.

He ended his demonstration with a lively rendition of "God Bless America." As he played, a giant American flag was lowered at the back of the stage.

His was a tough act to follow.

But sometimes you just want to try something so badly that you don't really care how foolish you look.

Plus, there was no one else around, besides Patak and photographer Matthew Grotto.

No one to chuckle, snicker or throw tomatoes at my meager offering to the musical gods. And even if there had been, I had my back to the audience.

So I put my pointer finger on middle C along the lowest of the four keyboards.

"Heart and soul, I fell in love with you. Lost control and tumbled over aboard."

I was a tad embarrassed by my selection until I realized "Heart and Soul" is classic 1930s music.

It was written in 1938 by Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael.

It was the perfect piece to perform on a grand theater organ in a grand theater.

Patak said in addition to tours, the theater offers open houses, during which visitors can also play the organ.

If you're so inclined, I suggest you brush up on your favorite piano piece.

Next time I visit, I plan to surprise Patak with a lively version of, oh, I don't know, maybe "Chopsticks."

Eric
KB7DQH
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."