Grateful BRO

The concept of BRO (Blue Roadhouse Orchestra) emerged in the early 90's when Marc Jacoby (aka MJB Fresh) migrated to the suburbs of NYC to raise children and play music. The suburban entertainment landscape included clubs, birthday parties, halloween parades, family reunions, weddings, and fiestas, benefits and fundraisers of all types. When Marc received calls from jam starved clients, he would subsequently call up his lifelong and newly acquired musical acquaintances and blood brothers and put together a perfect rocking ensemble!


These earliest BRO incarnations featured Billy Sokol, Carla Capretto, Pete Min, Andy Ladue, Doc C Crutchfield, Mic Redmond, Jeff Eldredge, Chris Merola and others. During the early 90's Marc's children went to school with guitarist and vocalist Cliff Mays' kids, and Cliff blended into the BRO milkshake quite seamlessly. At the same time, Marc was singing Beatles tunes at a well known Scarsdale nursery school when a young 4 year old at the time raised his hand and said "my daddy plays drums, and has his own band, and knows more Beatles than you do". That was the beginning of the collaborative relationship with drummer Jim Weingast as a full fledged BRO meister. Turns out that Jim and Cliff had been playing together for a decade, before meeting Marc, in various bands, most notably The Great Red Shark, and Dude of Life (Phish writer). Cliff and Jim brought a number of amazing musicians into the BRO fold at that point, including Jeff Reich(The Emptys), bassist, Doug Derryberry (The Emptys/Bruce Hornsby band). A decade of great jams at amazing celebrations and gatherings followed, at which point, Jim, Cliff, Marc and Jeff Reich formed Rockmitzvah, a musical mentoring organization which serves the needs of musical children celebrating their rights of passage in the Jewish community. As a result of the visibility and success of this venture, BRO became even more active. BRO continues to appear in its various forms on the creative performance landscape of the greater New York metropolitan region.