Wonderful!

Chicago based musicians Bobby Broom (guitar), Chris Foreman (organ), and Greg Rockingham (drums) pay tribute to legendary musician Stevie Wonder with their release Wonderful! The album, which was released in August 2011 on Origin Records, is guitar/organ trio at its best and pays homage to Stevie Wonder by doing jazz arrangements of nine of Wonder's compositions. The musicians carefully listened to Wonder's compositions, memorizing the words so they could honor the melody of each tune to its fullest potential. They found a nice balance of adding their own creative interpretation to each song but staying true to the essence of Stevie Wonder's music. This is the group's fourth CD together. Each musician in this group is able to convey so much heart throughout the album. I am amazed how creative each musician is on some of the groove-based songs that stay on one chord for an extended period of time. This is one of the hardest things an improviser can do but Broom and Foreman do it effortlessly continually ?speaking' through their instrument with deep soul and emotion. I am a longtime fan of the Deep Blue Organ trio having seen them live many times. This group is one of the great gems in jazz and they continue to just get better and better. Any fan of Stevie Wonder will be overjoyed with this record. I think award-winning music biographer David Ritz sums it up best when speaking about this trio? "these guys are playing ballads that have me weeping, blues that have me moaning, and grooves that have me jumping."