Dan Fogel

Solidly in the line of the great Hammond B-3 jazz players like Jimmy Smith, Groove Holmes, Jimmy Mcgriff, and Wild Bill Davis who emerged in the 1950s, Dan Fogel caught the B-3 bug early. Born June 21, 1948, in Atlantic City, NJ, Fogel could lay claim to being Jackie Gleason's second cousin and his aunt, Helen Forrest, was a big-band singer who worked with Benny Goodman, Harry James, and Artie Shaw, among others. Fogel found an opportune job shining shoes in front of the legendary Club Harlem when he was only seven years old, and he couldn't help but soak up the music -- mostly jazz -- that the club featured. After hearing Groove Holmes' B-3 version of "Misty," Fogel was hooked. He started piano lessons at the age of ten, but it was the organ that called to him, and he purchased, with his parents' help and a whole lot of shoeshine money, his first B-3 organ when he was 11. Two years later he made his debut on the organ at the Wonder Gardens in Atlantic City, and was soon gigging regularly in the area as a teenager. He has continued to use the Atlantic City area as a home base throughout his career. Over the years Fogel has worked with such jazz notables as Pat Martino, Odean Pope, Billy James, Eddie Mcfadden, Sunny Murray, and Cecil Payne, and has released six albums on his own Laughing Waters imprint: Movement de la Mer (1983), Naked Flowers (1986), Something Like That (1996), Oracle (2001), Soul Eyes (2004), and 15 West (2006). ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide