Bobby Broom Organi-Sation @ Green Mill

Friday 7/17/15

It’s not too far of a mental stretch to figure out why jazz – particularly instrumental jazz – can be a scary proposition for many people, even self-proclaimed music lovers of other genres. Everyone’s taste is unique of course, but broadly speaking, there exists a noticeable gap between what artists are capable of and what uneducated audiences understand, let alone enjoy.

That begs a multi-faceted debate: Accessibility vs Innovation; Making a Living vs Artistic Expression; Historic vs Forward. Ideally, truth lies in a balance. Focus too much on the past, and you risk culling originality and treating the medium like an irrelevant museum piece that gets cheaply auctioned from buyer’s remorse city to buyer’s remorse city. Forge too far ahead, and you risk outpacing potential fans and potential paychecks, as well as getting caught up in your own ego.

But jazz is an art, and art can do whatever it wants. Besides, artists like Wynton Marsalis have found great success in reviving the past. Conversely, Ornette Coleman was able to influence countless artists and – eventually – find vindication in his explorative work.

I open with these thoughts because of the Organi-Sation’s incredible ease and comfort in finding that balance through jazz interpretations of popular music from the 60s and 70s. That ease and comfort translated into a very warm reception from the Green Mill’s audience, and sometimes – sometimes – art can actually please its audience. Who knew?

Players

Bobby Broom (g)

Ben Paterson (org)

Kobie Watkins (d)

Set 1

Superstition

Nobody Else But Me

I Can’t Help It

Ode to Billy Joe

Guitar Man

Set 2

Jitterbug Waltz

Tadd’s Delight

The Tennessee Waltz

Come Together

Summer Breeze

Layla

Broom certainly isn’t the first to do this of course. Jazz musicians don’t live in a vacuum, and neither should their music. Ella Fitzgerald recorded an album of Beatles covers. Wes Montgomery scored his biggest commercial hit with “Windy”, originally performed by 60s folk rock band The Association. Miles Davis was known to frequent a few jam sessions with Jimi Hendrix and was interested in collaborating for an album until the latter’s untimely death. Just last year, guitarist Dave Stryker committed to the 60s/70s pop concept on last year’s excellent Eight Track with a similar line-up to the Organi-Sation, plus vibes. Broom himself has had most of these songs in his rep since at least his two album releases in 2001 – Modern Man and Stand! He’s probably played them for longer too, but everything before and since then has largely stuck close to the Songbook and original work.

Luck must’ve been on my side that night. Broom explained how this particular performance was the Organi-Sation’s first full set as a group outside of their main gig opening for Steely Dan. He spoke of how he had been able to “throw something together” after being contacted by the band and how that night was a “new chapter” for the group. I was more than happy to partake in that chapter’s opening sentence. How I managed to get a front-row seat a lean and an arm’s length away from the man is beyond me. Chalk it up to the luck.

The trio opened with “Superstition”, a song they’ve played “a million times”. Still, the group’s interworking were already apparent. Drummer and Chicago native Kobie Watkins made dynamics a strong tool for himself on the tune. Meanwhile, Broom chose to hold close to the blues, a smart choice for a night opener. It’s often said you should start your gig with a song you can play by heart. That way, you can get used to the sound, the room, and the players on that particular night. Bobby Broom didn’t make himself the exception.

Next was “Nobody Else But Me”, an ABAC Jerome Kern Songbook standard rife with modulations. Surprisingly, Broom still held close to plenty of blues licks, but expanding his rhythmic language with 16^th note runs and unique one note ideas. Already I could tell the trio knew how to build more than a song: they knew how to build a night, and that tends to be how a group gets more gigs. I know I’d pay for it. Organist Ben Paterson followed his bandleader’s excellent setup with a chops showcase of his own, later playing around Watkins’ 8 trades.

Their cover of Michael Jackson’s “I Can’t Help It” really caught me off guard in the best possible way. This was an up arrangement with Watkins playing an African 12 drum pattern. Being a groove tune, taking things faster might seem detrimental to the spirit of the song, but the melody is strong enough to stand on its own. Both Broom and Paterson always came back to it in their solos after five-note flurries and runs.

Further pushing the jazz set list envelope was Bobbi Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe”, and pushing it even further was the 7/4 time signature the trio chose to impose over it. Now I’m someone who’s still fascinated and perplexed by solos in 4/4. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with 7/4 (although many would argue to just “throw yourself into it”). Thankfully, the song is comprised of only three chords: I, V, and a subdominant minor right at the end of the form. Again, smart arranging for a smart group.

Closing their first set was “Guitar Man” by Bread, a composition Broom personally loved. It was during this song I realized just how many intro/outro vamps this group employed. During the pre-song ramble, he remarked that he did love the song, but not as much as Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman”. According to Broom, Pat Metheny revered that composition so much that Metheny “tried to make everything sound like Wichita Lineman”. Tragically, the group never got around to playing it. Here’s hoping the next night’s patrons were lucky.

The second set opened with “Jitterbug Waltz” followed by “Tadd’s Delight” by jazz icons Fats Waller and Tadd Dameron, respectively. More blues licks, more rhythmic-centered ideas, and more good music. The group’s comping and drum fills grabbed my attention. I’ve heard it through the musician grapevine that comping behind a soloist is actually harder than playing the solo yourself. It goes against conventional thought, but it makes sense. A rhythm section’s job isn’t just to play the right chords; it’s to make the soloist sound good. Think about that. How do you make someone sound good when you don’t know what they’re going to play? When they don’t even know what they’re going to play?

After finishing “Tadd’s Delight”, Broom commented on his reverence for great jazz players who also doubled as great composers. He named Herbie Hancock, Stanley Turrentine, and Tadd Dameron as examples. Broom himself mentioned that he was “still writing that Great American standard”. It was at that moment I started toying with the notion if there was another “Great American Songbook” to be found in America’s past.

Once jazz players began to find their own voice in the mid-40s away from big bands and simplistic melodies of the Songbook, some started to compose songs built from the ground up as true jazz standards. These tunes eventually formed bebop and individualized the jazz idiom. Concurrently, the number of Songbook standards being composed began to slow down. “Night and Day” and “If I Were a Bell” slowly became dated pop songs without replacement.

Once the 50s hit, American pop music turned to “Johnny B. Goode”, “Hound Dog”, “Rock Around the Clock”, and the rebellious sounds of rock and roll. However, much of it held extremely close to the blues thanks to its country roots – prompting the creation of the term “rockabilly”. Look up the chords of those three chart-dominating singles I last mentioned. You’ll notice their chord progressions are all practically the same with small variations: I-IV-I-V-I. They’re the barebones blues changes. Since jazz musicians had already been hammering out the blues for decades before the 50s, I can reasonably infer they found early rock to be fairly redundant.

In the 60s and 70s, the genres of Motown, British Invasion, and folk rock dominated popular culture just as rockabilly did. Just as jazz was busy innovating in its own realm, these sounds began to push the boundaries of what rockabilly had established. If not in more complex harmonies and melodies, then in its moods and atmospheres. Bubblegum pop songs like “Chantilly Lace” were phased out by the songs Bobby Broom and the Organi-Sation would bring to the forefront to close their second set. They included “Come Together”, “Summer Breeze”, and “Layla”.

A dark British Invasion classic, a 70s soft rock hit, and a blue-eyed blues tune. Perhaps it’s forced to try and place an overarching label over all these genres; but if the original Great American Songbook lasted from the 20s to the 50s and included songs from Broadway, movies, and commercial hit-makers, then who’s to say it can’t happen again? As the trio demonstrated, they’re just malleable enough to become part of the jazz musician’s repertoire.

After the second set, I managed to catch Mr. Broom coming off the stage and introduced myself. Without hesitation, he invited me outside of the crowded room to take pictures, ask questions, and lend his voice to a radio sweeper. I had a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that he just wanted to feel the evening summer breeze, but his attitude couldn’t have been more genuine.

If you ever catch this blues-leaning, 60s/70s-appreciating jazz guitarist in Chicago or elsewhere, make the effort to check him out. Whether you’re with jazz fanatics or not, everyone is bound to find at least a few tunes to recognize and enjoy.

Article and all pictures by Dominic Guanzon.

Check out some of Bobby Broom’s songs on SoundCloud.