It is clear that he’d rather talk about his dad than himself, even though his career is just as illustrious as the ‘old man’s’ was in his lifetime.

“Some people may just know him as a jazz musician, but my father was steeped in tradition. In the African tradition, he would be what is called a sage, or griot,” says Llewellyn, eldest remaining son of local jazz legend, the late Art Broomes, who died recently at the age of 79.

Speaking to the Sunday Chronicle last month at the family’s Princess Street, Lodge residence about this, that, and the other, young Broomes, who resides in the US and was about to come home to spend time with his dad when he received the tragic news, said the role of a griot far exceeds that of a mere storyteller, which is the closest the English have come in its translation.

With his group, ‘Shanto’.
“The responsibility of a sage, or griot,” he said, “is to maintain the culture of the village or country from which he originates. Therefore, as opposed to being a storyteller, who would be just telling stories, he is a storyteller, a poet, a dancer, drummer, musician and historian. He embodies the full spectrum of what culture is.”

Though he and his father were not as close as he would have liked them to be, they somehow share a common bond.

“I have a very strong spiritual connection with my father,” he said.

According to African belief and custom in which he was brought up, while a child may take its bloodline from its mother, it is the father from whom it gets its spirituality, particularly if that child happens to be male.

It’s a premise he has come to have a healthy regard for. “Based upon everything that I am doing, or have done so far, with regard to the Arts and Culture, unquestionably, the spirit of my father dwells within me. As much as I wasn’t raised with my father,” he said, “I am walking, actually step for step, in his footsteps. My father was into western …. as well as… traditional medicine; so too am I. He has written plays and short stories. So have I; from short stories; to poems; to songs.”

Like his father, he is also into drumming, which is how he came by the sobriquet, ‘Master Drummer’, a title bestowed upon him by the internationally acclaimed Trinidadian choreographer, the late Wayne Yorke.

‘Mpo’, pronounced ‘Uuumpo’, is another he picked up recently while in South Africa. In English, it means ‘The Gift’. It was given him by the peoples of Venda, an area populated by sangomas, as traditional healers, or what we in Guyana know as ‘obeah-men’ and ‘obeah-women’, are called in South Africa. ‘Menes De Griot’ he reserves for the stage, where he and the cultural group he founded, called ‘Shanto’ after the style of drumming they have mastered, help keep alive and promote his Guyanese roots.

Said he: “I am one of the few people ‘outside’ who is maintaining Guyana’s culture, especially the African aspect of it, dealing with the ‘Shanto’,” a genre of music he says originated in Guyana and was once made popular by the likes of Bill Rogers, Augustus Hinds, Tom Charles, Eddie Hooper and the Yoruba Singers.

“Basically, I play almost any drum, as well as the trap-set. But my proficiency is in the hand-drum; I am a master-drummer in the ‘Shanto’ style of drumming….and recognised as such.”

But, how does one tell ‘Shanto’ apart from the other types of music? Easy, he says. “If you look at all music, the thing that really differentiates them is their roots. The root of a music – whether ‘Rumba’ or ‘Reggae’ - is always the drums; so it’s the drums’ rhythm that helps tell one from the other.”

Diction, he said, “the type of phraseology you use, as well as the way you pronounce the words in the music,” is another key factor to determining origin of music. “If you listen to Bill Rogers, immediately you know that this is a Guyanese. It’s not trying to imitate or emulate anybody else. Even Johnny Braff; as much as he sings ballads, when you listen to him, you immediately recognise that he is Guyanese.”

“…Unquestionably, the spirit of my father dwells within me. As much as I wasn’t raised with my father, I am walking, actually step for step, in his footsteps. My father was into western …. as well as… traditional medicine; so too am I. He has written plays and short stories. So have I; from short stories; to poems; to songs.” –

Ironically, for all his father’s acclaim as a musician par excellence, it was not through him that he learned to play the drums. That credit, he says, belongs to his maternal grand-mother who raised him, and who was known to all and sundry in and around the Bourda Market where she made her living as a huckster, as just ‘Cicely’.

Such was her popularity, he said, that no one bothered calling his given name. “They never call me by meh name; everybody call meh ‘Cicely gran’son’,” he said, momentarily lapsing into the vernacular, showing an adroitness with language as only a Guyanese could.

A woman who was deeply committed to her African roots, she saw to it that her grandson was exposed to every facet of the culture, which accounts for his early fascination with the drum.

“My grandmother raised me within the culture,” he said. “I was exposed rather early to the Spiritual Church and the cumfa drums.”

He also learnt by watching the old masters at work; men like Ivan Critchlow and Boysie Sage, and the boys from the ‘Quo Vadis’ pan-yard, which he frequented since it was just across the road from the market, where he spent much of his waking hours as a youngster.

The Salvation Army, which in those days was just around the corner from his school, Bedford Methodist at the corner of Robb and Bourda Streets, was also critical to his learning about the drum and other aspects of music, since it was another of his favourite haunts.

Among some of the events of note he has participated in since taking upon himself to propagate the Guyanese way of life in ‘the States’, where he has lived more than 20 years now, are the famed ‘Million Man March’ of October 1995 organised by Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan; the ‘Million Woman March’ …and more recently the ‘Rio + 10’ Earth Summit held last year in Johannesburg, South Africa, which he had the honour of opening to the roll of his drums.

Whilst in South Africa, where he spent two months, he was also called upon to participate in the opening of a peace conference being hosted there at the time at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium, and the much-anticipated South Africa Fashion Week. This was in addition to helping out a friend, who, besides being a leading fashion designer, also runs a successful youth programme, and spending quality time with the sangomas.

There was a certain element of pride when he said that he has had the privilege of performing for all of the Presidents of Guyana. “I’ve danced for Forbes Burnham, but I’ve never played drums for him. I’ve played drums for all of the other Presidents after him,” he said, noting that many of those performances were during State visits abroad.

Asked how it is that of all the drummers in the US, he is the one that is invariably called upon to participate in these prestigious functions, he said: “At one time I used to ask myself that same question; but I don’t anymore.” He said that while he was elated at being asked to participate in the ‘Million Man March’, it was being asked to accompany on drums the ‘Sister’ who rendered the theme song in the ‘Million Woman March’ that moved him the most.

“The import sank in when I was on stage… There I was, of all the drummers in the world, dis lil drummer boy from Guyana…among all these great women who have contributed, and continue to contribute, so immensely to the world.”

A former Medical Corpsman with the US Navy, he now makes his living selling medicinal herbs.

“That’s how I make my living,” he said, “besides being an entertainer and playing the drums. I help people to heal themselves by changing their eating habits and giving them different herbal compounds and stuff to bring about their healing.”

Among his long-term goals is to try to come back home a little more often and spend at least a month or two so that he can share with the younger generation some of the little tricks he’s picked up both here and during his many sojourns abroad.

For the moment, however, his immediate plan is to be back home for Emancipation celebrations in August.