Well this might turn into a long reply. First of all, God bless Professor Dennis Montgomery III's Organ chops and musicality. He treats the B3 with great sensitivity, making great use of her unique musical possibilities, not merely focused on her wonderful ability to scream and shout, but also making use of her light subtleties.
I had graduated from Berklee in 2000 and I wish I had had the possibility to enjoy organ lessons with D. Montgomery III. But, as far as I remember, he was the highly regarded director of the Berklee Gospel Choir. However, he wasn't listed anywhere as a teacher in the piano departement. At least at that time, there was no such thing as an organ department, not even an officially listed organ teacher, I hope there is now.
Luckely, I had the opportunity to take private piano lessons with Bruce Katz, in my opinion one of the best teachers at Berklee as well a passionate Hammond Organ player, who advised me, due to my passion for Blues, Roots, and Gospel and Soul Music, and for the sound of the B3, to contact Joe di Tomasso, one of the best organ technicians in the region. God bless his soul (I found out recently he is not alive anymore, which had brought tears to my eyes, since I learned about his death during an organ-practice break, here in Switzerland..), he gave me one of his "one in a hundred lucky deals" on a Hammond B3, a wonderful instrument that is now standing in my studio in Zürich, Switzerland. He charged a ridiculous price of 2000 Dollars to me, since I could not have afforded a single penny more....
I had never aproached D. Montgomery III. since I was dumb enough to believe what fellow students said about his openly not-so-great opinion of white people (and how much more white could I have been as a foreign student from Switzerland ... Therefore I was even too scared to take the risk to ask him for organ lessons, in spite that the things I had heard about him might just have been mean and false rumours.
Well, I'm glad I have finally discovered the internet and also lgm.com, to inspire me to work on my organ skills, particulary my gospel music and gospel organ skills, to find inspiration and new ideas!
Well I wrote a lot of maybe uninteresting things, I just wanted to express my greatfulness to people who post videos such as the montgomery one, I wanted to tell people of my huge love for the B3. When I started to actually practice the organ at berklee, there was still no Hammond Organ in any of the Berklee practice rooms. I still believe me spreading my fascination among fellow students for the sound of the hammond was a main factor that made Berklee purchase a practice instrument for students, one year after I got my own B3. Proudly I had invited many piano and other students to my appartment and they were all fascinated by the instrument.....
Maybe thanks to all the contributions here on learngospelmusic.com and other great sites, I hope in a few years I will not only be a violin and jazz piano teacher here in Zürich, but also a gospel organ teacher. Thanks LGM.com, you are making my dream come a bit more true!
