Joey DeFrancesco (1971–2022)
American jazz organist, trumpeter, saxophonist and occasional singer; born 10 April 1971 in Springfield, Pennsylvania, died 25 August 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona. Third generation of a jazz family — his father "Papa" John DeFrancesco was a working organist.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md]
Career
- Playing Hammond organ from age four; playing Jimmy Smith solos verbatim at five; fixture of the Philadelphia club scene by ten.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md]
- Signed to Columbia at 16; his debut All of Me is credited with helping bring the organ back into jazz in the late 1980s.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md]
- Toured Europe with Miles Davis at 17 (keyboards on Amandla, 1989); founding member of The Free Spirits with John McLaughlin and Dennis Chambers at 22.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md]
- Recorded with his idol Jimmy Smith: Incredible! Live at the San Francisco Jazz Festival (1999) and Legacy (2004, Smith's last recording).^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md]
- 30+ albums as leader, four Grammy nominations, 9-time DownBeat Critics' Poll winner; inaugural inductee (2013) of the Hammond Hall of Fame alongside Brian Auger, Billy Preston, Steve Winwood and Jimmy Smith.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md]
Organs: tonewheel and New B-3
DeFrancesco played vintage tonewheel instruments and was also deeply involved in Hammond-Suzuki's modern digital instruments as a product consultant and endorser — his album with Tony Monaco was literally titled A New Generation: Paesanos on the New B3 (2003), and he endorsed the New B-3 line (see clonewheel-organ).^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md] Jon Lord's heavily modified Deep Purple Hammond organ was later acquired by DeFrancesco (Wikipedia's Hammond organ article, citing Vail, The Hammond Organ: 186; confidence: medium).^[raw/articles/wikipedia-hammond-organ.md]
JazzTimes called him "the best Hammond B3 organ player on the planet"; the Chicago Tribune wrote that he "dominated the instrument and the field as no one of his generation has."^[raw/articles/wikipedia-joey-defrancesco.md]
Related
- jimmy-smith — his idol and recording partner
- jon-lord — whose modified Hammond he acquired
- hammond-b3 — the instrument he carried into the modern era