Home » Member Page

Bobby Broom

Guitarist Bobby Broom has always embraced the rhythm and blues core of jazz music.

About Me

Bobby Broom was born January 18, 1961, in New York City’s Harlem. At ten years old, he heard one of his father’s records—by organist Charles Earland—touching off his lifelong love affair with jazz. By the time he was sixteen, Broom was attending New York’s prestigious High School of Music and Art and gigging with pianist Al Haig; a year later, Sonny Rollins hired him to play at Carnegie Hall and invited him on tour. Broom elected to finish high school, went on to attend Berklee College of Music, then, in 1981, accepted Rollins’s job offer. By that time, Broom had also signed with GRP Records and recorded 1981’s Clean Sweep, which was a crossover jazz success. But rather than settle into a comfortable career in the emerging genre of “smooth jazz,” Broom stayed on the road with Rollins until 1987, then settled into the rich Chicago jazz scene and continued his international work as a sideman for other jazz luminaries such as Earland, Kenny Burrell and Miles Davis. In the 1990s Broom recorded two quartet records, but by 2000 had decided to make a guitar- bass-drums trio his primary outlet. He solidified a lineup with bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer Kobie Watkins with 2006’s Song and Dance, followed by 2008’s The Way I Play and 2009’s Bobby Broom Plays for Monk. (The three came together again for 2011’s Upper West Side Story, although Chicago drummer Makaya McCraven sat in for Watkins on three tracks.) His highly successful organ ensemble the Deep Blue Organ Trio (1999-2014) recorded four albums and was updated with his current organ group the Organi-Sation, recording 2024’s Jamalot and 2018’s Soul Fingers. Other recent Broom albums include the augmenting of the trio with pianist Justin Dillard on 2022’s Keyed Up and 2025’s More Amor – A Tribute to Wes Montgomery with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. Broom returns to his unadulterated guitar-trio for Notes of Thanks, in homage to one of the most important figures not only in jazz history, but also in Broom’s own life. •

Contact Me

My Jazz Story

My first encounter with jazz music came at around age 10. My father came home from the barber shop with a stack of LP record albums, one of which was organist Charles Earland's, "Black Talk." I was immediately drawn to the afroed, sepia figure on the cover, and when I turned it over and saw some familiar pop tune titles on the back, I dashed the record to my room and onto the turntable of my little stereo set. What I heard blew me away! I knew the songs, the melodies, but there was no singing, just instruments playing. Specifically, Earland's robust organ churned out authoritative statements of familiar melodies but then went a step further, playing his own... and oh so soulfully. I didn't know this was jazz, I just knew I liked it. And what a cosmic circle it was that unbeknownst to me at that time, I'd be performing and recording with Charlie some 20 years later! My advice to new listeners of my music, or any jazz for that matter, is to try to find songs in my body of work that are familiar to you. I've recorded everything – from Tin Pan Alley/American Songbook material, pop, classic-rock, funk, and R&B hits from the 1960s and '70, and jazz classics, to originals, There's something for everyone, provided they like soulful, lyrical, jazz guitar. There's a strong emphasis on the melodies, and the improvisations are deep, so there's a lot to process. But the beat and feelings are captivating, so it's a fun ride!