Dave Moreno describes himself as an organ technician, organist, designer, and builder.
Top photo: Dave working on the console of the Fair Oaks Community Clubhouse’s Wurlitzer-Morton organ in Fair Oaks, California.
When you’re one of the few people around for miles that knows the ins-and-outs of a theatre pipe organ, your skills are sought after and you wind up wearing many hats.
It can be hard to keep up with him – but we managed to find a moment when he could sit for an interview during the recent Southwest Road Trip.
Dave says that from an early age he wanted to play every instrument in the orchestra. Quite the ambitious goal! He began with the accordion and the bassoon – both rather difficult to get started with – and decided that learning all of the instruments would be “too much trouble”.
But one day, Dave, while visiting his aunt, would put on a record he found of organist Ray Bohr performing at Radio City Music Hall.
“I’ve never even knew [Radio City] existed and I heard it. I couldn’t believe one man was doing all of that stuff, and from there on that started the plague”.
Dave’s first in-person exposure to a theatre pipe organ was at The International Restaurant that had a Robert Morton pipe organ (originally from a theater in Sacramento), and was introduced to the inner-workings of the instrument by organist Warren White, who Dave would become good friends with for years after.
This brings up an interesting aside: We’ve covered Ye Olde Pizza Joynt, which was the very first “pipe organ and pizza” restaurant. But pipe organs were already in operation in other restaurants, supper clubs, nightclubs and ballrooms. But most of these weren’t the sort of places where you could let your kids run around.
“Pipe organs did appear in places long before pizza parlors. Dave Quinley used to play a place in Benicia called the 210 Club. It was a nightclub, and they had a little style D Wurlitzer in there, and he played that in the evenings.”
There are even pipe organs in wineries!
“I’m one of the few organ technicians that has three wineries with pipe organs in them, and they all happen to be Robert Morton’s for some reason. The first one was up in Healdsburg (California). It started off many years ago by other people putting a Marr and Colton in there, and then the original owner passed away and the new owner came in and he wanted to put a more substantial instrument so we found a big Robert Morton.”
Like several other organists we’ve interviewed, Dave’s performing career started off in electronic organ shops like those that used to be prevalent in shopping malls. From there, while still in High School, Dave moved on to playing real theatre organs as an intro act:
“My buddies and I would get in a car and I’d drive to San Francisco to the Avenue Theatre, and they would allow me to play a pre-show before Bob Vaughn came out and played the silent movie.”
It didn’t take long before Dave got in on the “pizza and pipe organ” craze, although at first it was an electronic instrument.
“During high school I decided I wanted to play in a pizza parlor. I helped put one organ in before that in San Rafael, which I later moved and played there at a later time. But in my hometown where I lived in Pleasant Hill, at the time, Straw Hat approached me wanting to know if I want to play organ there, if I could get one and put it in and stuff. So my dad and I found a Conn organ and my dad cosigned for me to buy the thing and we installed it in the restaurant and I put tons of speakers on it and I played there for a couple of years.”
Dave would go on to play in a number of California pizza restaurants, and hone his skills at maintaining, relocating, and installing theatre pipe organs.
Dave continues to be a sought-after theatre pipe organ technician.
We interviewed him at Hunter Hall in Rio Vista, a private collection of many mechanical musical instruments, movie palace memorabilia, and a functioning Wurlitzer pipe organ. Like many other instruments in central and northern California, Dave keeps the collection at Hunter Hall in shape.
Of interest to Portland-area Organ Grinder fans, the pipe organ in Hunter Hall is the same one that was once the instrument at Uncle Milt’s Pizza in Vancouver, Washington.
(Except for the console. Uncle Milt’s console was the first console from the Organ Grinder, which was originally from the Oriental Theatre in Portland. That console is now in a private home in the United Kingdom.)
The “Uncle Milt’s” Wurlitzer began its storied existence at Seattle’s Orpheum Theatre in 1926 – 100 years ago!
Dave has also attended performances at both the Portland and Denver Organ Grinder restaurants and is friends with several people from the original Organ Grinder group.
Dave brought his collection of news clippings, photos, and menus from various pizza/pipe-organ restaurants, which will be very useful for the documentary when conveying the multitudes of such venues that were popular across North America.
Not only did Dave have stories and materials to share with us for our documentary, he’s also the subject of his own mini-documentary, “The Organist”, which will premiere online soon. We’re in touch with that film’s creators and will update this post when it’s available.
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