Bobby Broom - Soul Fingers (2018)

Veteran jazz guitarist Bobby Broom combines his jazz pedigree with his love of the pop tunes he grew up with in the '60s and '70s on his twelfth recording as a leader, the aptly-titled 'Soul Fingers', produced by Steve Jordan. This is the heavyweight vinyl edition, pressed on 180g vinyl.

It's a formula that Broom worked to perfection on 2001's 'Stand!', which had him interpreting songs by The Beatles, The Turtles, The Mamas and the Papas, Johnny Nash, Stevie Wonder and Sly & The Family Stone through a hard-bop lens. This time out he puts his personal spin on some iconic pop tunes from that same golden era in a swinging program with his Organi-Sation, featuring his longtime drummer Kobie Watkins and the Philly-born, Brooklyn-based B-3 ace Ben Paterson.

Together they shuffle and swing their way through pop classics like The Beatles' "Come Together," Bobbie Gentry's "Ode To Billie Joe," Steely Dan's "Do It Again," Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze" and others. And Broom, a continuation of that great jazz guitar lineage running from Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery to Grant Green, George Benson and Pat Martino, holds nothing back in his harmonic stretching and fleet-fingered flurries on these familiar vehicles.

'Soul Fingers' also represents a reunion, of sorts, between Broom and drummer-producer Steve Jordan, who played together in Sonny Rollins' band during two different periods.