Brian Bromberg

from February-March 2019

29th Annual Boscov’s Berks Jazz Fest

Faithfully follows his wandering muse

By Ken Capobianco

If music listeners want to try and define jazz bassist Brian Bromberg’s style, they’re going to need an extremely thick dictionary. The bassist extraordinaire is one of jazz’s most ambitious and adventurous explorers who refuses to repeat himself, and consistently challenges his audience with new sounds.

Over the course of his 40-year career, Bromberg has effortlessly crossed genres after establishing his reputation in both the smooth jazz and traditional jazz worlds. While he has had success in smooth jazz with a number of albums, including the best-selling You Know That Feeling, the restless musician has also made bold moves into rock-infl uenced projects with his inspired, audacious homage to Jimi Hendrix, Bromberg Plays Hendrix, and fl exed his thrilling chops on a progressive rock fusion effort, Metal. Bromberg got his start in traditional jazz with Stan Getz when he was a mere 19-year-old, and went on to record numerous acoustic and electric jazz records featuring his versatile playing on both upright and different variations of the electric bass. A one-of-a-kind talent with one of the most diverse resumes in pop music, Bromberg is impossible to categorize, as he is unwilling to compromise his artistry while following his muse into the unknown. This is terrifi c news for jazz’s more adventurous fans and for a music world in desperate need of creativity and imagination. However, Bromberg’s gift of versatility has made it a bit diffi cult for him to reach the kind of stardom some of his smooth jazz peers have achieved and kept him from turning into a household name. “I guess you can say one of the problems with my career is I’m blessed with the curse of diversity,” said the gregarious 58-yearold bassist-composer via phone recently from his home in the mountainous artist colony community of Ojai, located between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, California. “As a recording artist, if you have a style and a sound, and that’s what you do, you can build a better career by doing one thing well because people gravitate toward that and count on it. James Taylor sounds like James Taylor, and you know what you are going to get with a James Taylor record. “Richard Elliot sounds like Richard Elliot because he has a sound and a vibe and his records refl ect that. For me, that’s not what I do, and it’s been a hindrance because I do so many diverse things so people are unsure about what they’re going to get. All my different records are very important to me, and that diversity is part of who I am, so I can’t not do different things. I love pizza, but I’m not going to eat pizza three meals a day every day. I like to change things up.”

Photo: Raj Naik

As Bromberg spoke about music and his career, his words refl ected the same enthusiasm, verve and vitality of his work. “My voice is my uniqueness, and I probably would have had more commercial success if I stuck to one thing but knowing that I still need to explore different sounds. The interesting thing is, while it may be difficult to build a bigger audience that way, the people who are into me love the diversity and want to go on a musical journey each time out. They respect you more as an artist, and it makes me feel like a valid recording artist and not just some guy making a record of covers or standards.” Bromberg’s most recent record, Thicker Than Water (Mack Avenue Records/Artistry Music), is a predictably unpredictable venture into uncut funk featuring an array of talent, including Everette Harp, Randy Brecker, Najee, Paul Jackson Jr. and one of the last unreleased recordings from the late jazz icon George Duke. It’s a vibrant set of songs that look backward to classic ’70s funk and the mid-’80s Minneapolis funk laid down by Prince and The Time, while also nodding to contemporary hip-hop thanks to loops and beats created by Bromberg’s nephew, Zach Bromberg.

“I’ve always loved funk,” Bromberg said. “For a bass player, it’s just fun, especially if you are a band that’s really grooving. It’s infectious, and you can’t stop moving. I love that. I dabbled in it in the past on the record It Is What It Is, which had a similar vibe, but this takes it to a new level. Groove is important. I’m a bass player and a drummer, so groove is my life. People respond to the music––their bodies are moving, and they are connected to it. If people are standing around, they are just listening to the music, but they’re not connecting. I wanted to really connect with people with this record––have fun but make music with integrity.”

Thicker Than Water comes after the deeply personal, sweetly swinging acoustic album Full Circle, which he recorded after he broke his back in two places during a career-threatening accident. “I’ve been wanting to make a funky record like Thicker Than Water for years,” Bromberg said. “Half of the songs go back awhile, and half are new. The label is much more of a jazz label, and they wanted me to do more jazz or another acoustic bass record because that’s what I do and what I love. Full Circle just kind of happened––it was very personal for me conceptually, and with me playing upright bass and drums, but all along I wanted to do Thicker Than Water, and it just sat for years. But fi nally I realized this was the record I really needed to make, and I was determined to get it done whether the label liked it or not.” He explained that he had Duke record for a previous session but couldn’t use the performance, and fi nally had the opportunity to integrate the legend’s playing with his own. “George was such a beautiful guy and a great musician. It’s wonderful to have him on the record. I realized I had this part that George had played and no one had heard, and realized it worked here, so it was perfect.” The title of the record refers to Bromberg’s collaboration on two songs with his nephew, who is steeped in hip-hop and electronic music. “Zach is much younger than me and into different music like hip-hop, and grooves and loops are his thing,” Bromberg explained. “With that music, there’s a primal groove that’s, of course, related to funk, and you feel it, you don’t just hear it. Now he’s not a jazz musician, but he does write some really great vibes, hooks and melody ideas and knows how to create atmosphere.” In April, the Tucson, Arizona, native will showcase his high energy songs from the album at the 29th Annual Boscov’s Berks Jazz Fest, which he has a great fondness for because of its wildly diverse lineup and open-minded audiences. “Berks is a great festival––one of the best in the world. The audience is phenomenal because they get all the music. John Ernesto [festival producer] is great because he books all kinds of musicians and spreads the genres out and caters to a lot of different types of jazz and creativity. It’s very cool and wonderful to play. When we play live—with this band, I have a 10-piece band, fi ve-piece horn

section—the energy is incredible, and I know the festival audience is going to love it.” He maintained that he likes playing festivals more these days, as he’s having a diffi cult time getting gigs in clubs because bookers narrowly defi ne his aesthetic. “The booking agents are having a tough time with me because the clubs that do jazz think I’m too smooth, and the clubs that do smooth jazz think I’m too jazz, so it’s a problem. I sit in the middle sometimes thinking, ‘OK, what now?’” Ultimately, Bromberg is just happy to be playing at all after he broke his back, which left him on the fl oor of his home unable to move at all for more than an hour. He was eventually rescued by the police who broke through his door after being alerted by his fi ancee. The accident and grueling period of recovery gave him a fresh perspective on life and music. “To say it was a life-changing event would be an understatement,” he said with a deep breath. “I’m lucky because I could have been crippled and lost the ability to walk, so it was the universe and God’s way to say pay attention and never take anything or anyone for granted. Never underestimate how fragile you are. It took me months before I could play. I couldn’t put my arms around the “When we are making music and acoustic bass. The doctor said, ‘you can’t play an instrument for a few months because you could do permanent damage.’ When you can’t do something, it’s humbling, and it makes your music mean even improvising, you are more because I’m so gratified to still be able to do it. I’m in pain every day, but I experienced it for a reason.” singing through your The highly introspective musician added that the instrument. The whole experience––combined with having to fl ee his home with his fi ancee, Wendy Frank, and evacuate their four horses point of creating music that twice during two separate Southern California wildfi res––deepened his music and refocused his art. has feeling and emotion is it’s “When we are making music and improvising, a window into who you are.” you are singing through your instrument. The whole point of creating music that has feeling and emotion is it’s a window into who you are. Whatever you are going through as a person comes out in your playing, so I hope it made me a better musician and allowed me to express more emotionally through my music, and people can relate to it more. Things like this come out through your art. And that’s always powerful.” Brian Bromberg is Brian Bromberg’s 4-string B24 bass, one of scheduled to perform seven the models in his Signature Series Basses shows during the 29th from the Kiesel Guitars Custom Shop Annual Boscov’s Berks Jazz Fest in Reading, Pennsylvania (Gerald Veasley’s Unscripted Midnight Jam: April 5, 6, 12, 13; RMF Project Penske Jazz Jam, April 8; Chuck Loeb Memorial All-Star Jam, April 11; and Smooth Jazz JJZ Sunday Brunch featuring Brian Bromberg’s Unapologetically Funky Big Bombastic Band, April 14). For information and tickets on these concerts, visit www.berksjazzfest.com. For more information on Bromberg, visit www.brianbromberg.net.