'It really kicks'

Tony Monaco’s ebullient organ style is a living link to the bubbling, flowing eruptions of his mentor, legendary organ master Jimmy Smith. The 40-year veteran headlines Lansing JazzFest Friday with a classic organ-guitar-drums trio also featuring guitarist Fareed Haque and drummer Randy Gelispie.

Monaco started in on the Hammond B-3 at age 12, after hearing Smith’s classic Blue Note recordings. At 15, he sent a demo to Smith and was rewarded with a call from his idol on his 16th birthday.

“Don't worry about playing so many notes,” Smith advised Monaco. Four years later, Smith invited Monaco to play at his California club.

From 1980 to 2006, Monaco played gigs at night while raising a family, managing Monaco’s Palace Italian restaurant and running a concrete company.

The organ trio revival, sparked in the 1980s and 1990s by Joey DeFrancesco, sowed the seeds for Monaco’s career resurgence. DeFrancesco and Monaco were both featured on the 2003 CD “A New Generation,” opening the way for a series of CDs that pleased juke music junkies and connoisseurs alike. Monaco lives in Columbus and plays and teaches jazz organ full time.

At Lansing JazzFest, you’re playing with guitarist Fareed Haque. You’ve played a lot of dates with him, including several at Cliff Bell’s in Detroit, and made a chart-topping record, “Furry Slippers,” that came out earlier this year. What’s he like to work with?

Fareed is a virtuoso, just a monster. I’ve played with many great guitar players. I toured two and a half years with Pat Martino. Fareed is another level. He can play the acoustic Spanish classical guitar style, but he rips and shreds on the jazz stuff, using the electric guitar. We could go from a sensitive ballad to a shredding jazz tune to a funky tune that’s jam based, and he’s spot on for all of them. I can’t say that for all the guitar players I’ve worked with. A lot of them are just one dimensional. He's multi-dimensional, and he’s a master of all of them.

He told me that he loves playing with you.

I love playing with Fareed. We met in Indonesia (several years ago). I was playing this Java Jazz Festival. We met in the lobby of the hotel. It was the other side of the clock. We were looking for a little beer or something. We were instantly connected.

(According to Haque, Martino walked up to him and hugged him, although they had never met.)

Soon after, we started working together. I’d call him or he’d call me. Sometimes we go in separate directions, but it’s always a pleasure when we get together. He’s got to be the best guitar player I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve worked with a lot.

How did the Hammond B-3 organ get under your skin?

I was turned on to the music by a friend of my father that gave me a couple of Jimmy Smith records. I was an accordion player, 12 years old, just starting my recording career. I had no idea what jazz music was. My record player in my bedroom had 45's of the Beatles.

So the first jazz I heard was organ jazz. I didn't know about Miles Davis or John Coltrane or any of those cats. I just knew that this man named Jimmy Smith played this instrument that I loved.

So I went to the local shopping mall — we didn’t have Internet. This is Ohio — not New York City — when you go to the mall to buy a record, you find the things that are selling in the region. A lot of Jimmy Smith records, some Jimmy McGriff, some Groove Holmes, an occasional Jack McDuff. Those were my first influences. I never got turned on to Don Patterson or Larry Young until later, much later.

I was mesmerized by the organ. I didn’t know until later that in the jazz community it was never fully accepted, because it was the piano-based trio that was the center of it all. And big bands had piano, bass and drums, just an extension of the piano trio. The organ trio — everybody was hoping it would just kind of come and go. But the organ is so mesmerizing that it created a little cult, and each generation passes it forward.

I have a lot of students. I teach online. How many organ players are going to be centered in Columbus, Ohio? But thanks to the Internet, I teach all these students all over the world, older people that just want to start playing the organ because they’ve always had one and never knew what to do with it, and then I've got these kids that are coming up with all this information and they’re really accelerating. So I don’t think this organ thing is going to go away anytime soon.

Were there some lean years when the organ looked like it was going to gather dust in the corner?

If you think about the late 70s and early 80s, these guys were putting synthesizers on top of the organ, trying to play contemporary music, the organ did take a dive. But then Joey DeFrancesco came out and sparked everybody’s attention and that started a revolution.

I’ve played organ my whole life, but I spent a lot of time raising a family, doing other things — running a construction business, being in the restaurant business — because living in Columbus, I didn’t have the resources to even consider music as a living.

But when Joey made it come back, that’s what brought a lot of us back into the game. I remember very well when Jim Alfredson and Organissimo were just starting. Some of their very first records. I remember very well. Me being a veteran, playing so many years, when we met, Joey loved me. He gave me the help I needed to finally realize that dream. That’s why I feel so strongly about teaching and giving it back. I want the next generation to keep this very much alive. I never gave it up.

This is your first time at Lansing JazzFest, right?

I have ties to Michigan. I teach at Hope College, visit the campus and do lectures and workshops. I’ve always wanted to do the Lansing JazzFest, and I'm honored to be a part of it. I'm bringing my modified organ. It’s unbelievable. It really kicks.