in their own words...Deep Blue Organ Trio

in their own words...Deep Blue Organ Trio

Date Posted: September 12 2011

Written By: Chicago Jazz

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The music of Chicago’s Deep Blue Organ Trio harkens back to the classic jazz organ trio of the 1960s. Not content to merely relive the past, guitarist Bobby Broom, Hammond B3 organist Chris Foreman and drummer Greg Rockingham have added a contemporary edge to their music. Individually, they are standouts at their respective instruments and have performed and recorded with many prominent jazz and blues musicians.

Chris Foreman is a masterful B3 player and heir to the throne occupied by the soulful, bluesy jazz organ legends who were once his influence. Blind at birth, Foreman started playing piano at age five and began formal training at seven. As a teenager he was attracted to the organ sounds of Jack McDuff, Groove Holmes, JimmySmith and Jimmy McGriff. This attraction led Foreman to pursue playing jazz on the organ, which he undertook through intensive study of recordings. He has arrived at a most exciting blend of blues-gospel and jazz and has developed a stunning command and range on the instrument. The blend of his sound is evident in his professional experience, which has included work with Hank Crawford, Albert Collins, Bernard Purdie and the Mighty Blue Kings.

Drummer Greg Rockingham began playing when he was just three years old and debuted as a professional musician at age five in his father’s jazz ensemble. An alumnus of the famed Interlochen Arts Academy and Northeastern University, Rockingham has performed or recorded with a wide range of famous names, including the orchestras of Glenn Miller and Guy Lombardo, vocalists Freddie Cole, Patty Page and Jerry Vale and instrumentalists Nat Adderley, Kenny Burrell, Charles Earland and Ellis Marsalis.

An internationally acclaimed jazz guitarist, Bobby Broom began playing guitar and studying music at age twelve. Broom attended New York ‘s famous High School of Music and Art, and by the time he was sixteen was playing with Sonny Rollins, and Charlie Parker pianists Al Haig and Walter Bishop, Jr. Broom holds a Masters Degree in Jazz Pedagogy from Northwestern University, and has played alongside some of jazz’s most dominant figures, including Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Stanley Turrentine, Kenny Burrell, Charles Earland, Kenny Garrett and Marcus Miller. He has also released several recordings as a leader.

Although they have been performing together since 1992, Deep Blue was officially formed in 2000 and has recorded four albums: two for Delmark Records (2004, 2006) and two for Origin Records (2007, 2011), including their just-released Wonderful!, a tribute to Stevie Wonder.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Chris and Greg, you began as a duo prior to Bobby joining you. When was that?

Chris Foreman: Nineteen eighty-four. We had our first job, October 12, 1984, but when you say duo, we weren’t playing by ourselves. We played together with various people back then.

Greg Rockingham: But from the very beginning there was a special connection that he and I had, and there were a lot of things that we had to go through as individuals––where he was and where I was––to take it further. And just by the grace of God, he gave Chris and me the patience to deal with those things and to move further. We had a lot in common just with that.

Foreman: We have a chemistry––actually, all three of us have a chemistry––to where we know each other almost like a book, musically; and that’s especially handy for me.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did the two of you meet?

Foreman: We met at a club on the South Side known as the Other Place––it’s a different venue now––and we were talking about organ players and how much we love jazz. We were like two little kids: You got this album? I got this album!

Rockingham: My dad was an organist, and during the holidays my grandmother used to play all the old organ records, Smith, McGriff, McDuff… So once Chris and I started talking, we fell in love. [laughs]


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Is it true that you practiced over the telephone?

Rockingham: Yes. We would rehearse in person, but we would also get together over the phone and sing arrangements and stuff to each other. Like, if we were playing with a vocalist, we didn’t want to just walk up on stage and play a song––the singer sings the melody, somebody takes a solo, and we take it out… We didn’t want to do that. We wanted to sound more rehearsed. So when we couldn’t get together, we would make up arrangements and sing them over the phone to each other.

Foreman: Sometimes I would take the train to his house, and through the night we would work on arrangements until we got them down.

Rockingham: We would sing to each other and play, and we’d stop and eat, and then we would go back to playing. When my wife closed the bedroom door, she couldn’t hear what was going on, so we played all night.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Spending that much time together simulates touring, where you can develop a musical camaraderie.

Bobby Broom: Yeah, I think it’s really something that they rehearsed on the phone––that they cared enough that when working behind a singer they didn’t want the accompaniment to be run-of-the-mill, so they worked on it to not be run-of-the-mill. That’s shows a desire to be extraordinary.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: How would you describe your music at that time?

Foreman: Umm, developing. We were trying to get our own style together.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Bobby, you met up with them around 1992?

Broom: Yeah, ‘91 or ‘92.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did that happen?

Broom: Well, I was loading out from a gig I had done the day before, and they were loading in––it was at the Backroom, a club that’s still in Chicago. I had heard about them and they had heard about me. And we just kind of ran in to each other on the street, you know, struck up a conversation: We’ve got to play. And there was already a connection with the organ and guitar and drums, because of all of the great groups of that instrumentation in the history of jazz music. So when I met these guys we all knew we wanted to play together. We talked about it, and made it happen. We’ve been playing together ever since.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: It was almost fortuitous in the sense that you were a long-time devotee of organ trio music.

Broom: Yeah, the first record that really struck my fancy that had anything to do with jazz was Charles Earland’s Black Talk. I was ten at the time, in ’71, so I didn’t know anything about music beside the fact that it sounded good and made me feel good. I’d tell my friends, who came over to play: You gotta listen to this! So, I had an affinity for jazz and organ music that started from that record.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did your music change once you hooked up with Bobby?

Foreman: I don’t know if I’m answering this correctly, but I’d say he brought a modern approach to the sound. For example, I had to think differently––we had to think differently––in terms of playing. I had to take more liberties within the sound and be supportive in those ways as well...

Rockingham: I agree with you. We had to think differently about how we were supporting, even though we supported everybody we played with. I’m glad you asked that, because I’ve been holding this in all the time I’ve known Bobby. Bobby brought a different harmonic thing and a different feeling overall to the group. He taught me personally about relaxing in time, and the groove. Most players that we played with were like, Let’s just play and have a good time, and then it’s over and we got nothing out of it. Maybe I shouldn’t say most players, but it’s about Bobby Broom right now. He taught Chris and I––and I know Chris will agree with me on this––about time, about the way Chris had to play behind him, which opened up another spectrum for me to play, and the way I play behind him. And it’s invaluable.

Broom: When you asked that question, I went back in my memory and feeling––how we were playing back then was very different than what it is now. And I don’t know if I brought anything helpful at that early point. We were developing, like Chris said, individually and as a group from about ‘92 to about ‘99.

Rockingham: Yeah, but the feeling of the things you played were different.

Broom: Maybe, but I’m saying it wasn’t until ‘99 that we hit a point where we could all see it, when it was crystal clear.

Rockingham: The thing about it is, it was “in there”––no one would stick together that long if nothing was in there. And that’s my point––it was in there, so we had to find a way to bring it out.

Broom: Remember we were playing in Evanston? We hadn’t been playing as regularly as we had in the previous years, because I was traveling with Dr. John––we were only playing a few times a year over that five-year span. But we had some sporadic gigs; and the way we connected––and it happened maybe a couple of times prior to that––but that particular night, the way we connected, I remember the people went nuts. It was a neighborhood gig, but we got a standing ovation from our friends and neighbors! Usually people that see you at the grocery store and at the gym try to act a bit more aloof and unimpressed when they see you performing on stage at the club, but that night they couldn’t help themselves. It was spiritual experience. And that’s when we said, We gotta do something with this. That point was when we decided that we were really gonna focus on those elements that you talked about, and the dynamics between the three of us. Because before that it wasn’t just the three of us––we had a vocalist, or saxophone, or percussion. That’s when we decided to go ahead and do it with just the three of us.

Rockingham: Yeah, because Chris and I had already developed a sound together.

Broom: And that’s what I was dealing with when I came in. I looked at these guys with all these hits and kicks and arrangements and I was like, Damn, how’d you guys come up with all of that? On the phone?! [laughs]


Chicago Jazz Magazine: It’s tough for any group to stay together for a few years, let alone twenty. Why has it worked?

Rockingham: Well, I like oatmeal, Bobby likes oatmeal... Just kidding! [laughs] It’s just that we’ve grown to care about each other. This is just my opinion, and it happens to be God’s blessing that there’s also good music in that relationship. We do care about each other––if one of us is hurting, we’re all hurting. And it has nothing to do with music. I mean, I bring these B3s everywhere, I don’t care where we’re playing. It’s not because it’s my job and I have to do it––it’s because I love this group; I love Bobby, I love Chris, and I want to present the best we possibly can do. Sometimes I get depressed and my back’s sore or whatever, but I get some sleep and I’m back to lugging my B3s around. I’m not downing anyone who carries a portable organ––maybe at one point we will do some secret job like that.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Then it would be the Shallow Blue Organ Trio. [laughs]

Rockingham: I make sure the organs are in tip-top shape, I take care of the B3s better than my own drums.

Foreman: We definitely have a chemistry and maturity. Those are the best words that I can come up with. This group has matured. If one of us slips, the others pick him up. We lift each other up.

Broom: I like that word “maturity,” because it shows we’ve grown together. Like in a relationship, hopefully you can grow together. You can’t make that happen and you’re fortunate when it does. You have got to be grateful, and I’m grateful for these guys. Once I got into jazz guitar and I was listening to Wes and all the great guitar players playing with great organ groups, I thought, Man, I want to do that some day. So, in a sense, it’s destiny to luck out and meet these guys and have a connection that’s so strong and meaningful, and powerful musically. I’m just saying music is a large part of why we do this. Because at the end of the day everything else might suck in life, but when we get on stage and all of a sudden something happens that changes that perspective… that’s why we play.

Rockingham: I don’t necessarily want this printed, but I have multiple sclerosis, and I worry about that every day I play. Sometimes it’s hard to get motivated, but sometimes I think multiple sclerosis patients need to come and sit behind one of these instruments––it keeps you moving, it keeps you going, I get inspired: Okay, I wasn’t going to try this, but I’m going to try this now. And other days it doesn’t work like that, but I don’t have to worry about that stuff with these guys––they are just great human beings.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Has there been a Deep Blue crisis over the years––a point where you questioned whether it was worth continuing?

Foreman: No, not for me.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: It must sometimes be difficult, though. You each have a lot of options to do other things…

Rockingham: When it comes to the Deep Blue Organ Trio, there are no “other things”!

Broom: There have been causes of confusion in the past that, in the end, resulted in making our bond stronger.

Rockingham: We’ve actually had people that have tried to divide us because of their personal agendas––wanting to create billing issues about who’s name goes out front, or trying to have two of us record with another guitarist or another organist. But we laugh and joke about this kind of stuff. There’s a quote from a DownBeat review of one of our records that says “the Deep Blue Organ Trio speaks as one.” That about sums things up.

Foreman: I believe that people that really care to hear and feel us can see that we have a special connection. It’s kind of spiritual––even I can see that! [laughs]

Broom: Yeah, I think things happen the way they are supposed to happen. We work super hard, and have for a very long time, to accomplish the things that we have as a group. We also get a lot of support from people, fans and friends of course, but then there are people who become members of the band’s inner circle, people who have been tremendously helpful to us; people like Dave Jemilo and Josh Richter and more recently, Adam Rose and David Ritz. These people get our music, share our passion and believe in us and with us. People like this help keep things positive for us.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: So 1999 was Deep Blue’s watershed year.

Broom: Yeah, to me it was. That one performance caused us to reconsider what we were doing and how far we could take it. I remember it like yesterday. I remember sitting in my car in front of my house, and thinking, Okay, we should come up with a name, an identity. And I said, the Deep Blue Organ Trio.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did Steely Dan find out about you guys?

Rockingham: Well, they like organ groups––they have organ trios open for them. We got a call in 2008, to open for them at the Chicago Theatre. So we did it. Our set was okay.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Just okay?

Rockingham: Yeah, just okay. We just felt like we did the best we could under the circumstances and that was that. Then a year passed, and at the end of ’09 we got another call, this time to do ten or twelve dates. Great. So okay, now we know they kind of like us, they called us back. So that’s cool. We did it again just this summer.

Broom: Also, Nels Cline came around to see the group when I was out of town––Jeff Parker knows those guys from the group Wilco and brought them to see us at the Mill. Then they started talking about us opening for them, and though that hasn’t come to fruition yet, they did curate a festival of their own last year out in North Adams, Mass., and they asked us to play.

Foreman: Yeah, we were the only jazz music on the festival and the audience loved us.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Your latest CD, Wonderful!, is a collection of Stevie Wonder tunes adapted to Deep Blue Organ Trio sensibilities.

Foreman: I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Broom: Stevie is so prolific and so highly regarded as a composer; everybody is all over his music. Plus it lends itself to jazz because it includes many of the harmonic sensibilities of jazz and other musical elements that are stylistically closely related to jazz music.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you come up with the idea?

Broom: Well, thinking about it is one thing, doing it is another. To be able to do it with Deep Blue Organ Trio and the way that it turned out––I feel so positive about it, because we all know that music, we all have a respect and love for that music. And I can hear that in the end result––it’s not like we played these tunes just for the sake of playing them, or for some opportunistic reason. It doesn’t come across to me that way. I know we didn’t go into it that way.

Rockingham: Bobby was out of town a lot, so Chris and I would get together and take tunes that we thought we could play without losing our style. So, for “You Haven’t Done Nothin’,” we had this arrangement, and Chris and I were going over it with Bobby. So I made the mistake of going downstairs to check on the dog, and they were upstairs messing with it, and changed it! Now I had to learn this stuff that they are doing: I got to learn that? [laughs] I said, That’s what I get for checking on the dog!


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Chris, you had to do some heavy lifting on this album. As the B3 player, you needed to hybridize a variety of instrument and vocal parts to capture the essence of each tune.

Foreman: It was a great challenge, making sure the melodies are recognizable, and sound clean. That’s the operative word these days: “clean.” It was fun taking all that material, putting it all together like a puzzle––capturing his compositions and certain highlights of his performances. We’re all responsible for pulling that off.

Rockingham: The way Chris and Bobby play those melodies is heartfelt, like how Stevie was singing them. Sometimes we would ask Bobby purposely not to come to rehearsal, and I would sit there and Chris would play the melodies, and I would say “listen to the way he’s singing the melodies,” or Chris would say, “I’m not playing this right; I’m not playing the melody believably, like he’s singing it.” So it was a lot of work.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Also noteworthy are the musical dynamics.

Foreman: Thank you, we thrive on dynamics. We thrive on that, because the music has to go somewhere. We don’t want to sound monotonous, or one-dimensional, or what have you.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Especially as a B3 trio. For some people, a little B3 goes a long way. You manage to keep it interesting for the entire album. The same holds true for your live performances.

Foreman: Yes, I have been in places, that I won’t mention, but you go to some places and the dynamics––no matter where you are sitting––the dynamics go right out the window. All technical things you could think of are washed away. Forget it. They don’t matter!

Rockingham: With the B3, you’ve got to know how to play it. And when people walk in and see that we are dedicated enough to bring a B3 and two Leslie speakers, they think, These guys must be worth listening to.

Broom: I like what you said about consolidating all the parts––that’s the thing about Stevie’s music: he blended voices and had instrumental parts going in different directions, in the background and foreground––it’s beautifully orchestrated. An example of Chris interpreting this is in taking Herbie Hancock’s Fender Rhodes lick on “As.” You know, it was a background lick, but it meant so much in the original Stevie recording. There were a lot of little snippets in Stevie’s music that meant so much to us as fans of his art.

Rockingham: Including things like that, trying different beats and playing the songs in different musical styles or feels than the way Stevie originally wrote them was what we put into this record. A lot of it happens naturally from us knowing and liking the same things and just from getting together and putting our heads together. This record was one of the hardest, most enjoyable things that I have done.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Tell us about the liner notes.

Broom: Oh yeah, that was kind of magic. There were some stumbling blocks trying to get this album out. I’ll put it this way: I was thinking about the conventional way, the conventional paradigm, of releasing a record––which is fine. It worked in the past. But we decided that we were going to release this record the way we have been doing things recently––we’ve had great success with Origin Records. We retain the rights to our performances, to our CDs, and we are going to do it that way. As soon as we made that decision the pieces started falling into place [snaps fingers] like that. And so, the next night at the Mill, our regular folks that come out to hear us were like, Hey what’s going on? Our excitement was palpable. Greg was on the mic saying, Yeah, we’re doing this, going there, doing that, our new record’s coming out… So we get pulled to the bar on the break and are introduced to this guy. He’s like, Hey, my name is David and I love you guys. I have your CDs, and I have been trying to get down here to see you, I’m in Chicago a lot and I’m a writer and I have a lot of projects around here. The way he was talking about our music and his appreciation, I was like, Who IS this guy? Then he says, “I’d like to do your liner notes.” So I went over to get my meal at the Mexican joint next door, and I looked him up on the Internet––“David Ritz”––and he’s done liner notes and books on Aretha, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, etc., and my jaw was on the floor. Here’s a highly respected, renowned music writer that is a fan of ours. He said to me, “Good music has life of it’s own. And you can’t hold it back, you can’t contain it.” We may not ever be rich or on the cover of Jazz Times, but what we are doing is meaningful, and that’s why we stay together––because we love each other, and what we are doing is meaningful to us.

Rockingham: And we have had help from people like Dave Jemilo, Josh Richter… we have had some help.

Foreman: Those guys are like family to us.

Rockingham: Well Dave and I talk more than these guys, because Dave has threatened to take me to his farm and go turkey hunting, and go bear hunting and all that.

Foreman: I’ll have none of that!

Rockingham: I just want to watch––I don’t want to do all that. But having that extended family is great. The great thing about it is the help we have received––they approached us, and that makes it even more meaningful, because it was meaningful to them. We didn’t say anything; they just came to us. We weren’t panhandling and begging, they came to us, and that made us believe in ourselves even more.

Broom: Right. Becoming aware that somebody appreciates what you do. I don’t care who it is, but it’s really great when that person can be helpful to you in what you are trying to do, as opposed to just wanting to capitalize on it. It’s like back in old Europe, those accomplished musicians had some kind of benefactor. Classical musicians and more and more, jazz musicians today, that’s how they continue to thrive––through the patronage of individuals and organizations.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Let’s talk a little bit about the inner workings of Deep Blue. On stage, Greg seems to be the main voice or spokesman for the band.

Rockingham: It just kind of worked out that way, but we share. Sometimes Bobby wants to say something so he does. We kind of share it. As far as recordings, there are things that Bobby has to do that none of us will do. And I have my share of things to do: I make sure the organ is cool, the vehicle is cool, the trailer is cool and that Chris is cool. We want to be ready for every job and we want to sound our best. We each have our unspoken jobs to do.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: How do you get your bookings?

Broom: We have an agent, Maxine Harvard. She has been working on behalf of me and this group for a long time. She’s another person that we’re fortunate to have as part of our family. She’s someone that has been in our corner and is doing her best to put us on the map. That’s what it’s about.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Where would you like to take Deep Blue?

Broom: Everywhere we can, really. This is what we do. We feel that we are deserving of recognition––but more than that, opportunities, because we sound good, we are professional and audiences love us. And that’s not egotistical, just factual. As a youngster I was a music fan, and now I’ve gone back to that again. I’ve been at the developmental point when you’re learning––You’re at school, and you are trying to absorb everything and be on the cutting edge of things. I’m beyond that. I’m fifty years old––I listen to music I enjoy, I play music I enjoy. When I play and hear the music we make, it’s like I’m twelve again because I feel that same music fan in me responding. So from that standpoint, we should be playing everywhere. That’s the objective to me, to just do as much as we can.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Bobby, in the pre-interview conversation you referred to something called the “magic trajectory of music.”

Broom: Yeah, that’s what David Ritz was talking about. I was thanking him and telling him how much it meant to me, his interest in us. He knows where we’re at, in terms of our visibility, and he has his ideas about the group. He said, “Man, it’s my honor. I want to have the opportunity to spread the word about this group.” You know, some of the stuff that we do doesn’t make sense––driving around with two B3s, or flying thousands of miles; but it’s not about the tangible or the stuff that you can make sense of all the time. It’s about something else that drives us. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but good things will always happen.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Deep Blue is a group that relies on a great groove. How would you define what makes a groove great?

Foreman: This sounds like a term paper: Okay, Chris, ten pages. [laughs] Mr. Forman, your assignment is… I don’t know how to describe it, except to say that I feel when the music is right. In my case, I can’t see the crowd––I assume their heads and feet are moving––but when I hear them wailing to what we are doing, that’s another way for me to tell if our groove is good––when we see the crowd clapping, and I did say see the crowd clapping. Sometimes we don’t even know where this groove is going to take us, but it’s like we don’t want it to end. It’s almost like being intimate.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Can you create a groove with highly intellectualized music in the same way you do with a blues or swing based music?

Foreman: You can do it. It may be a different type of groove, but you can do it. I guess Baroque and various types of classical music have their own groove, if you will––they just don’t call it that, but you can do that, as long as you know the music, as long as you feel it. You know when you feel it because you’ll start to play it better.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Some people would attribute the groove in your music to the fact that it’s blues-based, something that you can tap your toes to. You’re saying that’s true, but that it goes beyond that.

Rockingham: I’d say a good groove is about feeling and your response or reaction first, not thought. You have to be aware of the tempo or pulse and have the skill and coordination to play simple and syncopated rhythms over the tempo. When your execution can affect the feeling of depth, or the urgency of the pulse, then you’re dealing with what we call the groove.

Foreman: Yeah. My favorite organist in terms of grooving and soul and feeling and everything is Jimmy McGriff. Jimmy could groove you into bad health or good health. I’ve been to places where he could hit just two or three notes for a repeated phrase, and it’s just grooving. McGriff has inspired me to keep that kind of feeling going.

Broom: There are many kinds of feelings. And there are all kinds of deep feelings. What we do is of a particular kind––one that comes from, or is of, a particular experience. You know it when you feel it.

Foreman: Yeah, you just know it. When we get on that stage and when the music sounds right we say, Okay, we know what we’re doing. And then the audience knows it, and we’re all in it together.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Chris how do you take your cues for when to solo or when to lay out?

Foreman: Most of the cues that I take are from the drums or are verbal, such as, Here we go, or sometimes one of us will go, ahhhhh; and that “ahh” means––well, it can mean a lot of things: it can mean get out of the way, or it could mean I like what you’re doing, or it could mean something’s coming. If I take a cue from the drums, like when I know when Bobby is concluding his solo––when he bears down, that tells me I gotta get in there with something.

Broom: A lot of the cues are aural and from understanding the music. I think that goes for all of us, because, yeah, there are some verbal cues, there are some cues that Greg gives on the drums, but we are all tuned to what’s happening in the music, the directions it can take, the possibilities––and hopefully we do the next right thing as a unit. We decide and we go that way. Like how we feel in a moment: Oh, I better cue this, to make sure we’re all on the same page. And since we have been playing together for so long, we are trusting––we don’t have to look at each other.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: What upcoming project would you like to see for Deep Blue?

Rockingham: One of my original loves, especially when I was in high school and growing up was big bands. And I would like to take this group and surround it by a big band, without a bass, and let Chris play the bass line, just like we are––and then surround it with a seventeen-piece big band. I always wanted to do that.

Foreman: I’m all over that. That’s something to think about. I don’t know how to follow that, but I’m all over that.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Have you talked about this before?

Broom: Ha. No bass… Nothing against bass players! [laughs] I saw Ron Carter overseas somewhere, and he said, “I heard your organ group,” And he’s like, “One thing: y’all need a bass player.” [laughs] I said, “Man, get out of here, are you kidding me?! Chris Foreman plays some of the best organ bass ever!” Ron was kidding, of course… I think? [laughs] But, Bob Cranshaw told me that a lot of bass players were miffed in the ‘60s during the heyday of the Hammond B-3 because it put them out of some work. Yeah, I’ve got to defer to Greg on that, because I like that big band idea. Whoo, that would be intense! I kind of harbor this desire to do a record of all original material. I think that’s something that we should and could do. I like both those ideas, I like Greg’s first though.

Foreman: Hey, what about a Christmas record?

Rockingham: Yeah, with a big band! [laughs]

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