My wife and I had a great experience yesterday: the director of the church choir in which I sing took us and another church member to Ellenton, Florida, near Sarasota on the west coast of Florida, for an incredible musical experience. Outside Elllenton, in a pizza/fast food emporium called "Roaring 20s, Pizza and Pipes" is a magnificent oldtime Wurlitzer Organ originally built in 1931 and installed in the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. After the Paramount closed in 1995, a musical museum located in Germany bought it, but plans never materialized and the deal fell through. "Roaring 20" then purchased and installed it in their restaurant.
It is magnificent, the last in a series of 17 built for big movie houses with 4 manuals (keyboards), 20 ranks (sets) of pipes in Art Deco style with floral motifs on the sides and waterfall cap pieces on the top. In 1978 the color was changes from gold to ebony with the Art Deco motifs highlighted in gold, silver, bronze and copper.
A 20 horsepower Spencer Blower supplies air for the 2456 organ pipes whuch are over 26 miles in total pipe length. The largest pipe is 16', 14"; the smallest, the size of a pencil. It has 350 controls and 279 tabs and weighs over 31,250 pounds! All kinds of percussion sounds are available, including a marimba, tuned sleigh bells,piano, drums and trap---it is a one-man orchestra!
We arrived at 12:20 p.m., just in time to order our lunch (great spare ribs, and I understand the pizza is also fabulous) and to find benches and a table. Promptly at 12:30, to the sound of a blasting fanfare, the mighty instrument rose from a pit, like Neptune from the sea, exposing the organist/one-man band member, playing his heart out, hands and feets flying on pedals, stops, tabs and controls in a coordinated frenzy of dexterity. Two organists, Bill Vlasak, originally from Columbus, Ohio, and Dwight Thomas, a Buckeye from Marysville, Ohio are the two organists. We saw Dwight Thomas---and he is terrific. He ran through a very popular repetoire, ranging from "Phantom of the Opera" to "When the Saints Come Marching in". He puts a basket at the head of his platform facing the audience so that people can put 3X5 cards with requests in the basket.
I hear that the economy is taking its toll even on "the Roaring 20s", so I don't know how long this musical extravaganza will endure. if you have occasion to be on the west coast of Florida, I highly recommend that you make the trip to Ellenton and "Roaring 20s" for a moving remembrance of things past in this magnificent machine. It is well worth the trip.
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