Electronic musical instrument was designed to be a lower-cost alternative to a pipe organ for church music, musicians soon discovered that the Hammond was an excellent instrument for blues and jazz; indeed, an entire genre of music developed built around this instrument, known as the organ trio (typically Hammond organ, drums, and a third instrument, either saxophone or guitar). The first commercially manufactured synthesizer was the Novachord, built by the Hammond Organ Company from 1938 to 1942, which offered 72-note polyphony using 12 oscillators driving monostable-based divide-down circuits, basic envelope control and resonant low-pass filters. The instrument featured 163 vacuum tubes and weighed
Jon Marks playing in this idiom." Just before his death in 2007 Marks was working on a "Gene Krupa Story" musical with the Berlin-based drummer Arthor Von Blomberg. This musical will be performed in various locations in 2008. Jon Marks Jon Marks (Slough, Buckinghamshire, England, July 11, 1947 - Berlin, Germany, July 23, 2007) was a jazz pianist. Jon Marks began learning the piano at the age of 7. The lessons discontinued at age 12 when interest in New Orleans Jazz and improvisation occupied his practice time. His brother David Marks (psychologist) played the banjo. When he was 14 Dave took Jon