Thomas Scott Rome

THOMAS ROME'S PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY

Admitted to the bar in New York and Connecticut in 1983, Thomas Rome has been practicing law since then in both states, with significant international activity.   His beginnings in the music business were in jazz.  In collaboration with British concert impresario Wilf Walker and others, Rome’s first venture was as manager of then exiled Cape Town-born pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim (also known as Dollar Brand) and singer Sathima Bea Benjamin, Ibrahim’s wife, both major figures in the history of jazz in South Africa.  In 1985, in late-night talks in their apartment in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, the Ibrahims persuaded a young Rome to leave his position with one of the city’s largest law firms, Proskauer Rose (where he had been initiated in copyright and entertainment law), to devote himself to representing artists full-time.  

While remaining active in jazz, from 1988 through 2010 Rome became at the same time a fixture on an ever evolving "world music" scene, both in New York and around the globe.  As a personal manager, record producer, and concert promoter, he has been a catalyst in the international careers of, among others, Senegal's Youssou N’Dour, Morocco’s Gnawa modernist Hassan Hakmoun, and Pakistan's master of qawwali Muslim devotional singing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-1997), who all became icons of the musical cultures in which their careers emerged.  While N’Dour was transforming himself, with Rome’s support, from local star in Senegal to Grammy winner, “Africa's Artist of the Century" (Folk Roots magazine), and internationally known figure not only in music but in public health advocacy and politics, Rome also collaborated with such leading rock musicians as Joe Henry, Van Morrison, Peter Gabriel, Daniel Lanois, and Patti Smith.

In 1991, Rome invited American filmmaker Spike Lee to Dakar, Senegal to witness N’Dour’s extraordinary popularity in the country, and the visit resulted in a recording contract for N’Dour with Lee’s nascent 40 Acres and a Mule Musicworks label, distributed by Sony Music, and a broadening of N’Dour’s activities in the United States.  In 2000, Rome secured a new recording contract for N’Dour with Nonesuch Records of the Warner Music Group, followed by a contract for US tour representation with the Gloucester, Massachusetts-based International Music Network.  

From 1999 through 2005 N’Dour and Rome produced a unique event on New York’s musical calendar, The Great African Ball, first at the Hammerstein Ballroom, later at Roseland. N’Dour has since replicated the feat in Paris, in seven sold-out editions of the Ball, known in France and Senegal simply as "Le Grand Bal," at the 20,300-capaciy Palais Omnisports–Paris Bercy (HotelsAccor Arena). 

In ceremonies in New York on October 27, 2005, Rome was inducted into the Afropop Hall of Fame alongside Youssou N’Dour.  

Since 2010, Rome’s artistic interests as a producer have returned primarily to jazz.  He is known for guiding the rise of American tenor saxophone star Jovan Alexandre, and among his most recent projects is a curatorship, with Seton Hawkins, who is now manager of education and social media for Jazz at Lincoln Center, of a series of new and archival South African jazz recordings.

Though Rome’s connection to South African jazz dates to his years with Abdullah Ibrahim and Sathima Bea Benjamin, and even before, it has been particularly marked in latter years by partnerships with two other influential South African jazz artists – chromatic harmonica master, pianist, and producer Adam Glasser and the late saxophonist Zim Ngqawana (1959-2010).  Rome’s tutelege of South African actress and singer Nonhlanhla Kheswa, who has gained international notoriety as a charismatic player in Peter Brook’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord company in Paris, is also noteworthy, as are his collaborations with drummer Kesivan Naidoo, saxophonist Rus Nerwich, and a whole new adventurous wave of South African jazz talent.  

Rome serves as lawyer and advisor for the family and estate of Jackie McLean (1931-2006), the famed alto saxophonist who left his native New York City in 1968 to found, with his wife Dollie McLean, the Artists Collective, a vital teaching and performance space in the heart of Hartford’s African-American North End. By 1979, McLean had established the African-American Music Program at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School (its conservatory for music, dance, and theater), which is now known as the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz.  

Rome has been a voting member of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS or The Recording Academy) since 1997, and of The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) since 1996.  He was a founding delegate to the inaugural WOMEX (World Music Expo) at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin in 1994.   

Rome is also a trustee of The David Lewiston Archive, an organization dedicated to the preservation of sacred and traditional musics of the world, serving alongside Cynthia Bridgman Josayma and Rome's longtime colleague Brian Cullman, a recording artist, record producer, and two-time winner of ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music.

Rome is a professional basketball player agent certified by both the NBPA (National Basketball Players Association) and FIBA (International Basketball Federation).