People active in the silent era and people who keep the silent era alive. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Dennis Scott

Dennis Scott is an internationally known silent film organist. He first began accompanying silent films in the 1970s, when he started playing theatre pipe organs installed in pizza parlors in the midwest and on the west coast. He would accompany a couple of “two-reel” comedies every evening. His style has been compared to that of his legendary mentor, the late John Muri, who recorded numerous silent film scores for Blackhawk Films. Suzanne Lloyd, granddaughter of the comic genius Harold Lloyd, dubbed Dennis the “Master of Magic Notes.”

Recently, Dennis recorded several theatre organ scores for a historically large DVD box set of Mack Sennett films.

He is house organist at Chicago’s historic Music Box Theatre, playing weekend intermissions, the annual Sing-Along Sound of Music, the annual Music Box Christmas Sing-Along, several themed film festivals, special events, and the award-winning Second Saturday Silent Cinema Series, which was named Best New Film Series of 2011 by Chicago Magazine and Best Matinee Film Series of 2012 by the Chicago Reader.

Dennis is the official organist for the International Buster Keaton Society and accompanies silent Keaton films every year for their convention, held in Muskegon, Michigan, where Buster spent much of his childhood. He played for two seasons of monthly silent film presentations at the Oriental Theatre in Milwaukee, and was a regular performer for the Sound of Silents Film Festival in Three Oaks, Michigan. In 2013, Dennis was the first organinst to accompany a feature length silent film for the prestigious Detroit Theatre Organ Society in its 50+ year history. A co-founder and former President of the Silent Film Society of Chicago, Dennis was featured in the SFSC’s annual Silent Summer Film Festival from 2000 through 2010.

He was a staff organist at the Tivoli Theatre in Downers Grove, Illinois for nine years, where he became organist and music coordinator for Our Town Productions, an award-winning children’s theatre company. He recorded a CD with Chicago’s very popular West End Jazz Band, recreating the brief era of the “marriage” of the theatre organ and the jazz bands of the 1920s and 30s. For a number of years, he played the organ background for the annual live radio broadcast of “It’s a Wonderful Life” at the Rialto Theatre in Joliet, Illinois.

Contact Dennis Scott at: 773-863-4346 or email: dennis [at] dayscott.com