Jazz Articles about Bobby Broom

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Bobby Broom: Building a Legacy

by R.J. DeLuke
April 23, 2012

Guitarist Bobby Broom had a feel for music at a very young age. He was exposed first to clarinet and violin as a child, but they didn't have an impact on him. Eventually, an old guitar came through the household. It had four strings across an instrument with a small neck. “I didn't know it was a descendent of the banjo," Broom recalls. “I found out later it was a tenor guitar. I still have it. I didn't ...

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Deep Blue Organ Trio: Wonderful!

by Dan McClenaghan
August 19, 2011

Chicago's Deep Blue Organ Trio mines one of popular soul artist Stevie Wonder's most fertile creative periods--the late sixties through the early seventies--on Wonderful!. The organ trio format is known for its unvarnished soulfulness, and the group's reverent treatment of these familiar hits gives a breezy lift to Wonder's always engaging and ebullient melodies. Before about 1960 there was rhythm and blues in the record bins, which meant music made by anyone with an African heritage, be it ...

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Bobby Broom: Plays for Monk

by Chris M. Slawecki
December 28, 2009

"In many ways, Monk personifies all that attracted and continues to satisfy me in my love affair with jazz music," said Bobby Broom upon releasing Plays for Monk. “The way that he, the musician, fit into the jazz landscape while at the same time standing out and apart from it; the controlled but unpredictable creative freedom he spoke with as an improviser, and the variety of feelings he could conjure up; how, as a composer, his tunes were a clear ...

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Monk's Music and the Guitar

by Bobby Broom
October 12, 2009

As a guitarist whose love for jazz music began in the '70s, I was understandably excited to hear a few months ago, from a most reliable source, that Thelonious Monk really dug guitarist George Benson! Benson was probably the most popular jazz guitarist of the '70s and those who know about the place of the guitar in jazz history understand that he stands among the elite few of all time. Apparently, Monk was attracted to the same thing that a ...

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Bobby Broom: Swept Away by the Music

by Cicily Janus
September 9, 2009

Bobby Broom is a veteran jazz guitarist, originally from New York City and currently operating from the Chicago jazz scene. He's been the staple side dish of soul and jazz for over thirteen years at Pete Miller's Steakhouse in Evanston, IL. He's also busy performing regularly--not only Chi-town, but throughout the world with his own groups, the Bobby Broom Trio and the Deep Blue Organ Trio, and with saxophone icon Sonny Rollins. But Plays for Monk (Origin, 2009) is a ...

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Bobby Broom: Plays For Monk

by Mark Corroto
June 16, 2009

Monk lives! Perhaps it can be said that Thelonious Monk has had many lives. Ever since the unique pianist established his repertoire in the 1940s and '50s musicians have, probably beginning with saxophonist Steve Lacy, taken up the task of covering the now infamous music. With Plays for Monk, guitarist Bobby Broom delivers one of the finest Monk tributes to be released in quite some time.

Best known for his work with Sonny Rollins, the saxophonist asked Broom ...

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Bobby Broom: Plays for Monk

by John Barron
June 14, 2009

Chicago-based guitarist Bobby Broom pays tribute to jazz icon Thelonious Monk on Plays For Monk, a fresh take on eight of the late pianist's compositions, along with a couple of standards associated with Monk's repertoire. Joining Broom for his third release on Seattle's Origin Records are his long time trio mates, bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer Kobie Watkins.

Broom does a tremendous job navigating Monk's music in a bare-bones guitar trio setting. His horn-like approach to soloing, relying ...