Episode 033 Chicago Music Revealed with Mike Jeffers and special guest Bobby Broom talking about his upcoming performance as part of the Jazz Foundation of America Musicians' Emergency Fund Concert 5/14 Featuring: Sheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Milton Nascimento, Anjelique Kidjo, Stanley Jordan, Ivan Neville and many more.
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About Bobby Broom
By 16, Broom had a regular gig with bebop pianist Al Haig when the saxophone colossus himself, Sonny Rollins, invited him to go on tour. Broom declined, though he did perform with Rollins at Carnegie Hall later that year. Five years later, including one at Berklee, Broom at last joined Rollins’s touring band, ultimately spending two five-year stints with him. Prior to joining Rollins, Broom declined yet another prestigious gig—a spot in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers—to instead sign with GRP Records and make his crossover jazz debut, 1981’s Clean Sweep. That record and its follow-up, 1984’s Livin’ for the Beat (Arista), attracted a following and promised a career in what would soon be known as smooth jazz. Broom, ever independent-minded, though, instead jumped ship for Chicago, where he concentrated on straight-ahead jazz. He continued with Rollins, joined Kenny Burrell’s Jazz Guitar Band, and worked with Miles Davis, Stanley Turrentine, and his early idol Charles Earland. In the 1990s Broom formed two trios: The eponymous Bobby Broom Trio and the Deep Blue Organ Trio. Deep Blue recorded four albums before its dissolution in 2013. Broom also made three quartet records (No Hype Blues, Waitin’ and Waitin’, and Modern Man) before deciding to focus on his guitar- bass-drums trio as his primary outlet, beginning in 2001 with Stand! (Premonition). He solidified a lineup with bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer Kobie Watkins with 2006’s Song and Dance, which was also Broom’s first recording for Origin. That trio also scored with the vibrant 2008 live date The Way I Play and the 2009 Bobby Broom Plays for Monk, which Allmusic’s Rick Anderson called “a warm and wonderful tribute to one of America’s finest composers.” Makaya McCraven was introduced on drums for Upper West Side Story (2012), Broom’s first collection of all original compositions, and My Shining Hour (2014), his first standards album. The Organi-Sation was born from the ashes of the Deep Blue Organ Trio, which had been a regular touring opener for Steely Dan. Unaware of their 2013 disbanding, the Dan once again called Broom in 2014 to book his “organ group” for their summer tour. Broom was reluctant to throw together another organ combo when he wanted to focus on his working trio, but McCraven wouldn’t hear of it. “He said, ‘Man, you can’t not do this,’” Broom recalls. “He said, ‘Let’s sit down, go through our rolodexes, and figure this out.’” When they reached the name of organist Ben Paterson, Broom thought he might be on to something. As Paterson was about to begin an extended stay in Chicago, he agreed to join the band. McCraven took a leave midway through the tour, with Watkins replacing him. The Organi-Sation quickly jelled as such: “I thought after the Deep Blue Organ Trio that I would never feel anything quite like that chemistry again,” Broom says. “And boy, was I wrong.” If Soul Fingers was the product of that chemistry, it’s also a natural outgrowth of Broom’s personal artistic values. “The interpretation of popular songs doesn’t seem to be the mode du jour for jazz players, but I have to play music and a style that suits me, one that I want to hear,” he says. “This record—these songs, this presentation—is how I want to engage with the world.”
