This was a first for me. I have never even heard of this place until Sister Ashby announced that before going to the temple to see the lights, we were taking all of the young women to eat dinner at the Organ Stop.
We met at the church parking lot and drove to Mesa, arriving at the Organ Stop just in time to order pizza, find our reserved seats and get ready for the show. First the lights dim and then you start to hear the music. But there is nothing to look at except the lighted organ pipes, with the glass doors opening and closing to let the sound out. Now you notice all the pipes and other instruments lining the walls all around the room. Then finally the organ and organist rise up out of the stage floor! It is quite a sight to behold.
We sat and ate and listened to a variety of tunes from Christmas classics to show tunes. There was a request jar that the organist would check every few songs, but mostly he tossed them aside and played what he felt like. From his seat he runs a complicated one man band including percussion and horns to accompany the organ. He never said a word, just played for about half and hour and then disappeared the same way he had appeared, into the stage floor. We finished up our dinner and left just as the organ began to emerge again for a new audience, with a new set of songs.
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