Thabks for sharing! The record we are hearing on the Victor Orthophonic phonograph is "The Minor Drag" by Fats Waller & His Buddies. Originally the title was "The Minor Fuss" (and the flip side was "Harlem Drag"), but the record company got the titles mixed up in production, and it has had that title ever since!
I could hang out with Joe all day! I wonder if Photoplayer manufactured their own player piano action or if they used something like the Standard player action.
The console is on display while the organ remains to be restored and installed (in the basement chambers, with a tone chute going to the two sets of swell shades in the back of the orchestra pit).
The organ is from the Strand Theatre in Modesto. It spent many years in a Porterville home, then a private collection in Visalia. The organ is a style 185sp with the factory-added Tibia Clausa.
Aha! I knew once I heard it! Angry Birds theme is old and borrowed from this wonderful musical treasure. Slow it down just a little and a few other notes, and voila! 3:45
Yes this orchestrion was formerly in the McCoy collection in Menlo Park CA. I don't know the earlier history. It was poorly stored at some previous point before Joe got it, and important parts went missing. This is a shame since it is probably the only one left. Joe and Dave have tried to reconstruct it as best as possible.
Yes there are I believe 4 additional ranks of pipes on a chest mounted on chest bearers behind the Fotoplayer piano. That includes the tuba rank etc and I think a diapason rank. I can't remember the make and provenance of the added pipes and chest. This Fotoplayer was very late (1926) and from the factory had a stacked xylophone and bell unit not ordinarily found on a model 20, mounted behind the piano. This is probably the unit currently sitting in the pit of Joe's theatre near the phonographs. It also had a triangle. This was in addition to the standard model 20 instrumentation. All the rest of the sound effects etc which it has (besides the original ones) were added by Joe in restoration. The xylo under the keyboard was added to have something to play until the rear mounted xylo/bell unit was finished.
It’s a shame he doesn’t know how to use that thing….but seriously, wow. That theater is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. And for one person to do all of that is amazing.
