Bobby Hackett talks about different audiences

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Bobby Hackett discusses who influenced his decision to dress smart as a band

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Bobby Hackett on recording Wurlitzer

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Q: “You’ve been called the most beautiful sound in the world on your trumpet. You’ve never really cared for any classifications or anything, and you’ve done albums with …I can’t remember the guy’s name – you’ll know it – playing pipe organ…”

A: Bobby Hackett: “Well, that was Glenn Osser's writing.”

Interviewer: “It was.”

Bobby Hackett: “And it was kind of a freaky affair. As usual, it got all bungled on the way. While the original idea I thought was good. We wanted to do it in a church or a big auditorium. Actually, I wanted the Paramount Theater in New York late at night after they had closed, but the cost was prohibitive. You would have had to hire a whole stage crew and all that and we wound up doing it at a guy's house and the organ was within like a two-car garage, which, of course, destroyed all the sound. I wanted the natural reverb. I wanted the way an organ would sound in a church, with four hands playing it. And I called up Glenn Osser, who I think is the best writer around and I said, "Glenn, do you know how you would write for great, big string section?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "I want you to write that, but we're going to have it on an organ, the mighty Wurlitzer,” which is the king of instruments. And the original cost of the instrument that we did it with was a quarter of a million dollars. It was the organ that was in the Paramount Theater and this guy is a wealthy organ collector. He collected that and he bought the one at the Roxy Theater and had them completely restored and it was kind of a hobby with him.”

“So Glenn thought I was crazy. I said, "I want you to play the right hand, then we'll get somebody from Wurlitzer who understands the mechanics of ... you know, it's very complicated to do the other and you write him a part. But in the recording, it got compressed and I thought it was a reproduction disaster, really, because we had, I think seven men that sounded like a hundred due to the organ. But the rhythm section never got recorded. We had a bass, we had a guitar and a drum and you can't tell on the record because it's just terrible engineering.”