Everything
@Selaws said.
For me, it was the first song on Lou Donaldson's "Natural Soul" which was featured in the Blue Note Anthology that VMP did. I didn't buy the anthology, but I listened to all the records and that song "Funky Mama" sold me on Big John Patton. (And Grant Green.) That song has such a simple little riff, but he just creates a whole mood with it that makes the whole song feel like the best time ever.
I'm not an organ player, so what follows might just be bs that I've made up and tell myself, but here goes: Sometimes when people play the organ there are these little [probably unintentional] side effect sounds that happen because maybe they're used to playing the piano and they're basically trying to play the piano on the organ just to get a different sound. It's not really a big deal but I feel like I notice a clear difference listening to Big John Patton. He is in his element on the organ - he makes it breathe and sing. It just feels like, beyond understanding jazz and being able to improvise and jam, he is in tune with the mechanics and physics of how organs specifically make sound and takes fuller advantage than other organ players of the quirks of the sounds that they make in really musical ways. There's like vibrato that pulses through that simple little riff that makes it feel so alive.
