Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 16 - April 22, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Huber’s Hiccups..................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals............................. 4,6,7
Pets........................................8
Weekend
Forecast
Happy One-Hundredth Birthday
to a Special South Bay Resident
Virginia Young’s 100th Birthday was celebrated with a Drive-by Celebration. We wish Virginia a very Happy Birthday and many more happy years to come. Photo courtesy City of Inglewood.
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Rare Wurlitzer Theater Organ
Can be Heard in the South Bay
By Kiersten Vannest
In the 1950s, two musicians named Bill
Fields and Bill Coffman (the “Two Bills”)
decided to buy a theater pipe organ, an all
but obsolete instrument, and one that is today
considered rare. They found their treasure in
the Fox Theater in Long Beach, and they
brought it to none other than El Segundo.
Located on Richmond Street, innocuously
hidden among the many storefronts, is the
188-seat El Segundo State Theater, which
opened in 1921. Decades later, the Two Bills
commandeered this space and turned it into
Old Town Music Hall. They installed their
organ. With this theater, they decided to
honor the music of the pipe organ and the
art of silent film accompaniment by providing
authentic silent film experiences, as well
as music shows.
Standing in the lobby of the theater, the space
is a mix of 60s colorways and 20s traditions.
It is the silent film era through the lens of
the 1960s. The theater itself is decorated in
such grandeur as all movie palaces afforded
in the silent film era. It is regal.
Today, pandemic aside, the theater still
offers true to history moving picture experiences.
Edward Torres, the theater’s current
organist, offered some insight into what that
experience, and a theater pipe organ, look like.
“Back in the 1920s, it was a whole smorgasbord
of entertainment,” says Torres, explaining
that a movie experience then was very different
than what we’re used to today. When going
to the movies, for the price of one ticket, a
guest could experience an entire symphony
orchestra if the theater could accommodate
it, or in some cases, a theater pipe organ.
After some music, the organist would play
a sing along. Then a Vaudeville stage show
might start, or a popular singer might give
a performance. After that, a newsreel would
show, then a cartoon or a short comedy. At
this point, an intermission would allow audiences
to get snacks and stretch their legs.
Finally, the feature film would play.
This is a tradition that Old Town Music
Hall hopes to keep alive, to educate audiences,
and provide an opportunity to hear a
real theater pipe organ.
“They differ completely from your typical
church organ in concert, in that they were
designed to sound as much like an orchestra as
you can possibly get a pipe organ to sound,”
he explains. The Wurlitzer organ located in
the theater is a massive feat of musical accomplishment.
The musician can play the
baseline of the music with their left foot,
control the volume with their right foot, play
the harmony and melody with their hands,
and control the rest of the orchestra sounds,
including things like flutes, trumpets, and
strings. It’s truly a one-man-band.
There are only about ten to fifteen people
in all of Los Angeles that can play the theater
pipe organ. While most of them are in their
seventies and eighties, only three are under
thirty. Torres is carrying on a musical legacy
that is all but lost to the world today.
So how did he get involved in the world
of the theater organ, to begin with? Born in
Culver City, Torres says he saw a video of
the Two Bills with their organ in the early
days of YouTube. As someone who already
played piano and was very musical himself,
he wanted to try his hand at the complicated
instrument. He begged his mother to take
him to Old Town Music Hall, but she wasn’t
convinced it was even still around.
Finally, at thirteen, while traveling through
El Segundo with his aunt, they stopped by
the theater. She encouraged him to go inside
and get a program. “I thought I was breaking
into the movie theater,” he laughs. He heard
the organ playing and an audience singing
along, grabbed his program from the lobby,
and left so fast no one even knew he was there.
Now knowing the theater was in fact, still
around, his mother agreed to bring him back.
“And they haven’t been able to get rid of me
ever since,” he says.
Theater organs are also rare to find today.
Well over two thousand theater pipe organs
were active in Los Angeles during the silent
film era. As that era ended, studios and
theaters had no use for them anymore, and
they became too costly to repair. All over,
they were broken, tossed, and even burned.
Today, only about three hundred and sixty
exist in the entire world that can be played.
Guests of the theater are largely people from
outside El Segundo who’ve come to experience
a silent film or appreciate the organ.
“Even right before the pandemic,” says
Torres, “we had people that said they’ve been
living in the South Bay for the last twenty or
thirty years, and they had no idea it was here.”
Despite this, the theater works with schools for
field trips and welcomes many musicians and
history lovers. Torres hopes to involve more
of the local community as well as film buffs.
Having trained under Bill Fields himself,
Torres took over for him when he was just
twenty-one years old. He teaches music lessons
regularly through the LA Parks and Rec
department, and when the theater is open, he
plays shows most nights on the weekend.
“Ultimately,” he reflects, “if I can give [the
audience] a good time and give them a good
show when they come here, then I feel like
I did my duty.” Old Town Music Hall will
reopen this summer for regular showings with
safety precautions. •