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The Cornell Concert Series presents; John Scofield's Combo 66 / ithaca.com
Posted At : March 6, 2019 12:00 AM
Iconic GRAMMY Award-winning guitarist John Scofield teams up with pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Vicente Archer, and drummer Bill Stewart in Combo 66, a new band that builds upon Scofield's long legacy of masterful improvisation and stylistic diversity. Scofield has been a major influence on jazz since the 1970's, continuously finding new and exciting avenues to reinvent himself as an artist. Scofield won consecutive Best Jazz Album GRAMMY Awards for Past Present (2016) and Country For Old Men (2017)– for which he also won Best Instrumental Solo. Now, joined by three formidable artists in their own rights, Scofield's Combo 66 showcases an intricate exploration of jazz's limitless direction.
John Scofield's Combo 66 performs on Friday, March 8 at 8:00pm in Bailey Hall as a part of the Cornell Concert Series.
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READ THE FULL ithaca.com ARTICLE
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New Batiste, Scofield & Bennett/Krall recordings make 92.5TheX 'jazz programmer top 10s for 2018'
Posted At : January 18, 2019 12:00 AM
Jon Batiste is an internationally acclaimed musician, bandleader and composer, and with his band Stay Human, currently appears nightly on national television as the bandleader and musical director for "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." HOLLYWOOD AFRICANS, a nod to the 1983 Jean Michel Basquiat painting by the same title, is both an indictment and reclamation of the long history of discrimination faced by artists of color in the entertainment industry, and in American society at large.
Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist, band leader and composer, John Scofield Combo 66 via Verve Records, marking the guitarist's 66th birthday. The album, which features long-time drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Vincente Archer and pianist/organist Gerald Clayton, combines jazz with genre-defying elements, allowing Scofield to find new modes of expression.
Tony Bennett and Diana Krall celebrate their shared love of the music of George and Ira Gershwin on their new collaborative album, LOVE IS HERE TO STAY, on Verve Records/Columbia Records. Tony Bennett, who celebrated his 92nd birthday in 2018 has been friends with Diana Krall for over 20 years. The two released 'LOVE IS HERE TO STAY' just in time for the 120th Anniversary of George Gershwin's birthday on September 26th. of last year.
All 3 recordings have made 92.5TheX 'jazz programmer top 10s for 2018.' SEE ALL PICKS
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John Scofield's Combo 66 is a masterpiece of subtlety / Jazz da Gama
Posted At : December 6, 2018 12:00 AM
John Scofield is every bit the force of nature he was in his earliest days when he set the guitar alight with then-Young Turks such as Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine on Charles Mingus' Three or Four Shades of Blues in 1977 or around the time he released his earliest (eponymously titled) work, which was preceded by the John Scofield Live album on the German Enja label.
Combo 66, helps not only mark – he tells us – his sixty-sixth year but also conjure the lyrical romance of "66" that became part of counterculture with (among other things) the iconic "Route 66", the "Main Street of America" or the "Mother Road", which is again evocative of music just as much as it is about a famous highway. But to describe the music as a neo-Romantic event as such gives the impression of post-70's overcooking when in actual fact the whole project is a masterpiece of subtlety. Mr Scofield's take on the lineage of The Cool sees him summoning translucent woodwind-like tones that float from the taut strings which simply bend to his will as the black dots jump to life and off the proverbial page.
READ THE FULL Jazz da Gama REVIEW
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John Scofield's Combo 66 will satisfy jazz and jam band fans alike / The New York City Jazz Record
Posted At : December 4, 2018 12:00 AM
Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist, band leader and composer, John Scofield recently released his new album, Combo 66, marking his 66th birthday, via Verve Records. The album, which features long-time drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Vincente Archer and pianist/organist Gerald Clayton, combines jazz with genre-defying elements, allowing Scofield to find new modes of expression. Scofield has been on a serious roll since 2015, when his release, Past Present, earned a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. He followed the release with the 2016 album Country For Old Men, which earned him two Grammy Awards for both "Best Jazz Instrumental Album" and "Best Improvised Jazz Solo ("I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry")."
see New York City Jazz Record review as cover image
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What the electric guitar can do for John Scofield / stereophile
Posted At : November 7, 2018 12:00 AM
Electric guitarist John Scofield, winner of multiple Grammy Awards, has a knack for staying a step ahead of musical trends. In hundreds of jazz settings, "Sco" and his signature Ibanez AS200 guitar and Fender Reverb amplifier have created a unique style and sound that have earned him a popularity beyond jazz's usual audience.
"It doesn't feel like I'm ahead of the [curve] at all," Scofield told me, from his home in upstate New York. "Maybe musicians are more attuned to what's happening than the public, just because we're so obsessed with music. But I try not to follow trends. I see that in other people-when they shouldn't be playing some kind of music, but they think it's hip, and then that doesn't work."
Emerging from Miles Davis's electric bands of the mid-1980s, Scofield worked with him to create albums that arguably constitute the trumpeter's last great period: Star People (1983), Decoy (1984), and You're Under Arrest (1985) (all Columbia). Post-Miles, and with a handful of solo albums already to his credit, Scofield released Still Warm (1986, Gramavision), which revealed his sci-fi-meets-blues guitar playing and fusion arrangements. Joining the Parliament-Funkadelic rhythm section of bassist Gary Grainger and drummer Dennis Chambers with his angular, animalistic hard-bop melodies produced albums embraced by rock and jazz fans alike: Blue Matter (1986), Pick Hits: Live (1986), and Loud Jazz (1987) (all Gramavision). Then, in 1990, just as acoustic jazz was reascending, Scofield formed one of the music's hardest-swinging quartets-with tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, double bassist Dennis Irwin, and drummer Bill Stewart-and recorded Meant to Be (Blue Note).
Through the years, Scofield's right-place, right-time magic has only grown. A Go Go (1998), with Medeski, Martin & Wood, and Überjam (2002) (both Verve), were popular on the jam-band scene. Saudades (2006, ECM), with Trio Beyond, revisited the Tony Williams Lifetime. The album 54 (2010, EmArcy) found Scofield's tunes sweetly arranged by Vince Mendoza, who conducted the Metropole Orchestra behind the guitarist. He's never stopped, having recorded 50 albums as a leader and almost 100 as a sideman.
His latest, Combo 66 (Verve), keeps the good vibrations flowing. Joined again by drummer Bill Stewart, Scofield brings pianist/organist Gerald Clayton and double bassist Vicente Archer to play his intimate tunes with clarity and pulsing swing. Scofield sounds freer than ever, and Clayton's large-scale keyboard work enables some of Sco's finest solos-in "Willa Jean," dedicated to his granddaughter, he even imitates what sounds like a crying baby seal.
"I try to play the guitar like that," Scofield said. "I see it as using what the electric guitar can do. The orthodox jazz-guitar approach doesn't include some sonic things I do in my music, when I'm bending notes and using volume swells from the electronics of the guitar-things like choking a note, and stopping it a certain way. For me, it's coming from the great blues-guitar players. But listen to Indian string music or the oud-there's all kinds of things the strings can do."
READ THE FULL stereophile ARTICLE
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Combo 66 is so dynamic, so driving forward, so playful, that it may be John Scofield's best album in years / jazzandrock.com
Posted At : October 18, 2018 12:00 AM
If someone like John Scofield calls his new album - Combo 66, then it has a reason. Yes, he turned 66. But the exceptional guitarist does not become wistful about it. Of course, there are also the associations with Route 66 and the golden sixties of jazz. So a certain idea of freedom? A look back? In any case. Nevertheless, Scofield does not fall into a nostalgic melancholy with his album. On the contrary, Combo 66 is so dynamic, so driving forward, so playful, that the title actually can only be meant ironically. It may be his best album in years
READ THE FULL jazzandrock.com REVIEW
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Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Bill Frisell all coming to town this month / The San Diego Union-Tribune
Posted At : October 13, 2018 12:00 AM
It's not surprising that Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Bill Frisell form the triumvirate of a very exclusive mutual admiration society. As three of the guitar world's most acclaimed and distinctive artists of the past 40 years, their singular careers are matched by the esteem they have for one another as musicians and friends. Each of them has developed a playing style so innovative and distinctive that listeners can identify their work within just a few notes.
Just how distinctive will be demonstrated over a nine-day period this month, when each of these three Grammy Award-winning guitarists perform separate San Diego concerts. It's hard to recall three guitar greats of their stature appearing here in such close succession, let alone three whose careers have intertwined as closely.
READ THE FULL San Diego Union-Tribune ARTICLE
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John Scofield keeps the fire burning, commemorating his 66th anniversary / jazztrail
Posted At : October 10, 2018 12:00 AM
On Combo 66, top-tier guitarist John Scofield is featured in a quartet with his longtime drummer, Bill Stewart, and two new collaborators, pianist/organist Gerald Clayton and bassist Vicente Archer. Scofield keeps the fire burning, commemorating his 66th anniversary with a provocative blend of post-bop, rock, swinging blues, soul-jazz, and funk. His nonpareil guitar strokes and bracing language are immediately perceived on the opening tune, "Can't Dance". The guitarist discloses his incapacity to dance but, on the other hand, substantiates the ability to play swinging post-bop pieces with hints of soul-jazz à-la Lou Donaldson with groove, humor, and hot bluesy licks.
READ THE FULL jazztrail REVIEW
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John Scofield leads Combo 66 to the Jackson Hole Center For the Arts / Buckrail
Posted At : October 8, 2018 12:00 AM
The depth of John Scofield's decorated career stretches about as wide as a veteran jazz musician could go after nearly fifty years of performing. The six-time Grammy Award nominee and three-time Grammy winner has become a household name for an uncharacteristically wide range of jazz and jamband fans. He'll take stage at the Center Theater this Tuesday as John Scofield's Combo 66, a quartet. If you are a connoisseur of innovative, legendary jazzers, you won't miss this show. For those on the fringe, Scofield could be considered a primer, a gateway artist to becoming a new fan of jazz.
READ THE FULL Buckrail ARTICLE
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John Scofield and Combo 66 set for Mohawk / Austin Chronicle
Posted At : October 4, 2018 12:00 AM
John Scofield's four-decade-plus career encompasses nearly every guitar style without blurring the jazz core of his oeuvre. Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Medeski Martin & Wood all figure prominently. Combo 66 – Gerald Clayton (k), Vicente Archer (b), and Bill Stewart (d) – anchors his first local gig since a 2005 Antone's stop-in. Catch them Friday at Mohawk.
The Grammy Award-winning guitarist, band leader and composer, released an album with the same name wuth the same players through Verve Records, Combo 66, marking his 66th birthday which features new modes of jazz crossover expression. Scofield has been on a serious roll since 2015, when his release, Past Present, earned a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. He followed the release with the 2016 album Country For Old Men, which earned him two Grammy Awards for both "Best Jazz Instrumental Album" and "Best Improvised Jazz Solo ("I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry")."
"If you can't have fun with the music, let's go home," Scofield says, alluding to his working credo. "I am so deadly serious about jazz, but the fact of the matter is jazz only works if you are relaxed and don't give a shit. If you try too hard it doesn't work. Humor really helps me to get to a better place with music."
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READ THE Austin Chronicle Q&A
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Combo 66 is core John Scofield / popMATTERS
Posted At : October 3, 2018 12:00 AM
It's hard to say whether guitarist John Scofield's age (he just turned 66) seems wrong because surely he's older or surely he's younger. On the one hand, he was playing with the likes of Gerry Mulligan and early fusion player in the 1970s, so he must be older. On the other hand, he's one of the few real "jazz" musicians that music fans in their 20s might know from seeing him at outdoor festivals and in rock palaces like DC's 930 Club. The music, certainly the meat and potatoes stuff on his new Combo 66, is timely though. So, age be damned.
This set is core Scofield in every way. He plays here with longtime collaborator, Bill Stewart, on drums. The bassist is Vicente Archer, a generation younger but from Woodstock, New York, which is Scofield's neighborhood these days. Archer is a member of Robert Glasper's acoustic trio and has a long history with trumpeter Nicholas Payton and alto saxophone master Donald Harrison. The pianist and organist in the band is Gerald Clayton, almost half Sco's age and part of the new jazz contingent, playing with Ambrose Akinmusire and Gretchen Parlato, as well as having strong mainstream chops. The band, new and old, seems to pull from all the right places and falls together like a group of old friends. The music is comfortable like your oldest, happiest pair of khaki pants, but it's also hip as all get-out, like those khakis Miles Davis wore when he was recording in the late 1950s.
READ THE FULL popMATTERS REVIEW
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John Scofield Combo 66 makes The New York Times 'most notable new songs and videos of the week'
Posted At : September 28, 2018 12:00 AM
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week's most notable new songs and videos - and anything else that strikes them as intriguing.
At 66, John Scofield remains one of jazz's sauciest improvisers. He's got a piquant, devilish style on electric guitar, and a way of stoking friction between two notes. And he's effectively coined his own subgenre of jazz-fusion waltzes: His tunes in that vein are coyly swinging, often with a spritz of country flavor, and plenty of lazy, drawling drag. On "Combo 66," his new album, Mr. Scofield - joined by the pianist Gerald Clayton, the bassist Vicente Archer and the drummer Bill Stewart - adds two new ones to the mix: the whirling "Willa Jean" and the very next track, the softly guttering "Uncle Southern." RUSSONELLO
Hear 14 More New Songs from Lil Wayne, Barbra Streisand, Thelonious Monk and others on The New York Times - Playlist
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On Combo 66, John Scofield and co. imbue jazz with elements from other genres imaginatively and unpredictably / glide MAGAZINE
Posted At : September 27, 2018 12:00 AM
John Scofield is one of today's most versatile guitarists, accumulating accolades and prestigious awards in contemporary jazz, jam band, and popular music. Heck, he's even made an excellent gospel album. For Combo 66, coinciding with his 66th birthday on September 28 he enlists the support of long-time drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Vincente Archer and pianist/organist Gerald Clayton. Together, in typical Scofield fashion, they imbue jazz with elements from other genres imaginatively and unpredictably.
Scofield is on a creative roll, having won two Grammys for 2016's Country for Old Men and last year's stellar effort Hudson with good friends Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, and John Medeski. As you probably know, he often collaborates with Gov' Mule and with Medeski, Martin, and Wood too. He'll unexpectedly appear on albums from Americana artists too, such as his guest appearance on multi-instrumentalist Phil Madeira's Providence. The well-liked and respected Scofield gets and accepts lots of invitations.
These are all Scofield originals. He credits the album title to both his birthday and as he says, "And 66 is the coolest jazz number you can get because if you hit 66 you're doing ok. Remember all the great records from the 60s? Brasil 66. "Route 66." It hit me that it would be poetic to use that title."
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READ THE FULL glideMAGAZINE REVIEW
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John Scofield is celebrating his 66th birthday with a new album / Staccatofy
Posted At : September 26, 2018 12:00 AM
John Scofield is celebrating his sixty-sixth birthday with a new album titled, Combo 66. The Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist, band leader and composer is joined by long-time drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Vincente Archer and pianist/organist Gerald Clayton. The band combines jazz with genre-defying elements, as they explore ten original Scofield tracks. Scofield's unique sound blends nicely with Clayton's style of playing and the quartet as a whole speaks a language that both pushes jazz forward, while still staying anchored in the fundamentals that make the music so vibrant. That vibrancy is rhythm and Sco's got it! That's the short of it!
SEE THE Staccatofy PAGE
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John Scofield brings Combo 66 to Dazzle / Denver Post
Posted At : September 21, 2018 12:00 AM
John Scofield has a distinctive sound and an unceasing sense of adventure; he's bringing his current project, Combo '66, to Dazzle for two nights, Oct. 6 and 7. Sometimes Scofield dabbles in rock and fusion, but the lineup of Combo '66 seems more straight-ahead: Drummer Bill Stewart, keyboardist Gerald Clayton and bassist Vicente Archer are accomplished jazz guys through and through. The Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist, band leader and composer is set to release his new album by the same name on Verve Records. Combo 66 which marks his 66th birthday combines jazz with genre-defying elements, allowing Scofield to find new modes of expression.
READ THE FULL Denver Post ARTICLE
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John Scofield's Combo 66 set for Athenaeum / The San Diego Union Tribune
Posted At : September 17, 2018 12:00 AM
The fall series opens on Friday, October 19, with a return by iconic Grammy Award–winning guitarist John Scofield, who teams up with pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Vicente Archer, and drummer Bill Stewart in Combo 66, a new band that builds upon Scofield's long legacy of masterful improvisation and stylistic diversity. Since the late 1970s, Scofield has been a major influence on jazz, continuously finding new and exciting avenues to reinvent himself as an artist. In recent years, Scofield won two consecutive Best Jazz Album Grammy Awards for Past Present and Country For Old Men-for which he also won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo-and has received resounding critical acclaim for his 2017 release Hudson with all-star bandmates Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, and John Medeski. Now, joined by three formidable artists in their own right, Scofield's new band showcases an intricate interpretation of jazz's limitless directions.
SEE The San Diego Union Tribune PAGE
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John Scofield will release new 'Combo 66' on 66th birthday / jambands.com
Posted At : August 25, 2018 12:00 AM
Grammy-winning guitarist John Scofield has announced he will release his newest album Combo 66 via Verve Records on September 28, the same day as the jazz veteran's 66h birthday. The new record follows up Scofield's two previous Grammy-winning efforts, 2015's Past Present and 2016's Country For Old Men, and features a band comprised of drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Vincente Archer and pianist/organist Gerald Clayton. "I wrote all new tunes for this record, _Combo 66_" Scofield says in a press release about the dynamic new album. "I called it that because I'm 66! And 66 is the coolest jazz number you can get because if you hit 66 you're doing ok. Remember all the great records from the 60s? Brasil 66. ‘Route 66.' It hit me that it would be poetic to use that title."
SEE jambands.com PAGE
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Trombone Shorty Academy students, master class with John Scofield / OffBeat Magazine - guest blog
Posted At : April 7, 2018 12:00 AM
We made it! Day 1 in New York City is a wrap! After an early (4 a.m.) meet up at MSY, our group of 17 boarded the first flight to Newark, and arrived in downtown Manhattan in time for lunch at the Italian market, Eataly, just down the street from where we are staying by Freedom Tower. Then we all hit the subway, taking the A Train to Greenwich Village and into the iconic Blue Note jazz club.
Our host, Alex Kurland, who books the Blue Note and also co-manages the Soul Rebels, put together an amazing afternoon of musical education and entertainment for us. Once he gave our group a history of the neighborhood and the club and explained his role as the Blue Note's talent buyer, legendary jazz/funk guitarist John Scofield took the stage and captivated us with a Master Class that included his discussing his deep respect for New Orleans, playing with Miles Davis and then calling our students to the stage for a funky jam session.
After the Master Class, we hit John's Pizza, and then back to the Blue Note for Scofield's early set. As we walked through Washington Square Park, the Shorty students took out their horns and drums and began to play. Check out footage of their performance in the park here! We capped the night with an incendiary performance by Scofield and his stellar ensemble (Gerald Clayton on keys, Bill Stewart on drums and Vicente Archer on the bass). photo: Dino Perrucci
READ THE FULL OffBeat Magazine ARTICLE
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Allstar lineup celebrates John Abercrombie / Jazzwise
Posted At : March 29, 2018 12:00 AM
ECM Records chose experimental arts venue Roulette, in Brooklyn, to host a musical tribute to the memory of John Abercrombie, the great guitarist having died in August 2017. The label had gathered together an astounding collection of guest artists (collaborators and friends) to reinterpret his music under the banner Timeless: A Tribute To His Life And Music. Ralph Towner was beset by an acute ear infection in Rome, but everyone else was confirmed, and already in the house. Nate Chinen of NPR (National Public Radio) acted as MC, weaving in reminiscences and direct quotes from the guitarist's admirers, introducing a continuing two-hour-and-more sequence of small group combinations. Unsurprisingly, Roulette was at full capacity, with a queue stretching right along Atlantic Avenue.
The first few numbers were very mellow and introverted, with Bill Frisell leading the way, partnered by Mark Feldman (violin), Thomas Morgan (bass) and Joey Baron (drums), for a set of delicate and expressionist moods. Nels Cline was up next, in more reined-in mode, with Peter Erskine (drums) and Marc Copland (piano) joining him, the latter doubling as the evening's musical director. The night was building up a softly loungey quality, until John Scofield and Baron returned, to play 'Even Steven', from 1984's Solar, which Abercrombie called 'the bebop album'.
READ FULL Jazzwise REVIEW
Also in the house were Evan Parker, Tim Berne (not playing) and ECM founder Manfred Eicher. Besides Abercrombie's undoubted significance as a jazz guitarist, time and again, his old friends alluded to his charming, yet slightly spiky, sense of humour, his generosity, and his self-deprecating wisdom. This was a man who was warmly loved by all of his peers, disciples and students. All proceeds from the concert went to a new scholarship in Abercrombie's name, and contributions are still being gratefully received.
– Martin Longley – Photos by Scott Friedlander
READ THE FULL Jazzwise PAGE
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John Scofield plays 'Quiet' and 'Loud' on NPR - Jazz Night In America
Posted At : July 29, 2017 12:00 AM
Almost exactly 30 years ago, guitarist John Scofield recorded an album he evocatively titled Loud Jazz. Not quite a decade later, he made one called Quiet. Both albums were statements of intent, widely embraced and justly acclaimed. And despite the obvious differences between the two, both were genuine expressions of Scofield's musical personality, which has always been more flexible than those extreme dynamic markings would seem to suggest. Scofield, of course, is one of the most prolific and admired jazz musicians of his generation, an ace with boppish phraseology as well as bluesy inflection. He's 65 now, and by some measures you could even say he's at the height of his career.
He won two Grammy awards this year for his most recent solo album, Country For Old Men. He also won one in 2016, for his previous release, Past Present. He's currently on the road with Hudson, an all-star collective whose other members - drummer Jack DeJohnette, keyboardist John Medeski and bassist Larry Grenadier - share his willingness to split the difference between lyrical grace and circuitous groove. (The group just released a self-titled debut, so don't be shocked if there's yet another nomination in the works.)
Jazz Night In America caught up with Scofield this past spring, just before he played a concert called "Quiet And Loud Jazz" in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Appel Room. One portion of the night featured a reunion of the Loud Jazz crew, with partners like bassist Gary Grainger and drummer Dennis Chambers. Another portion recreated the chamber arrangements from Quiet, with Scofield's longtime foil Joe Lovano standing in for Wayne Shorter on saxophones. The idea was to both acknowledge and bridge the distance between the two disparate albums, which might have been more difficult were it not for Scofield's sly consistency. "It's not like other famous jazz musicians, where their style changes, you know, decade to decade," says Jim Beard, the veteran keyboardist on hand for the Loud Jazz half of the concert. "He sounds very similar to what he sounded like, you know, 30 years ago. I don't think he sounds that different. And it's just such a strong personal style that that's amazing."
LISTEN TO THE NPR: Jazz Night In America SEGMENT
SEE THE WBGO PAGE
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John Scofield - Uberjam Band lives up to it's reputation at Edinburgh Jazz Festival / Herald Scotland review
Posted At : July 17, 2017 12:00 AM
The masters lived up to their reputations in this fascinating and contrasting double bill at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival that featured two of the great guitarists of the past thirty-plus years in groups that matched, supported and nurtured their virtuosity. John Scofield and Mike Stern are linked by having played with Miles Davis, in the same edition of the trumpeter's band, but even before that they had established their own, very distinctive voices, a term that grew in significance as the concert wore on.
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In a group that set a determinedly relaxed pace Scofield pared his playing to the essence, crafting solos that were every bit as concerned with tonal exactness and variety as they were with perfection in note choices. Responding to the textures of rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick's licks, flicks and samples, bassist Andy Hess's warm grooving and drummer Dennis Chambers' wonderfully understated expertise, this was to all intents and purposes blues singing of the highest order with a sunny side on the Caribbean-flavoured Dub Dub. Clearly defined, highly refined music with a sharp, spontaneous edge.
READ THE FULL Herald Scotland REVIEW
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John Scofield headlines opening night of Kansas City Jazz and Heritage Festival / The Pitch
Posted At : June 28, 2017 12:00 AM
On the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend, in the middle of the Paseo, at 16th Street, guitarist John Scofield headlined the opening night of the inaugural Kansas City Jazz and Heritage Festival. Staged by the American Jazz Museum, Scofield spun solos around and through country standards and classic pop, reimagining them as jazz. Scofield is a jazz icon. He toured with Miles Davis. He won two Grammy awards this year, for Best Jazz Instrumental Album (Country for Old Men) and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. Just before the last song of his set, Scofield looked out over the audience and mused, "Back east we know about you, Kansas City, because this is a jazz city if there ever was one."
READ THE FULL Pitch REVIEW
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John Scofield set for Kansas City Jazz and Heritage Festival speaks with KCUR Radio
Posted At : May 24, 2017 12:00 AM
John Scofield continues to make strides in the music world. His latest album, Country For Old Men, won the 2016 Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Today, the renowned guitarist recalls playing with the likes of Miles Davis and Charles Mingus. Then, we revisit the battleground sites of World War I to learn why a war most Americans think of as over and done remains very much alive to the French who live among its ruins and memories. John Scofield will be performing at the Kansas City Jazz and Heritage Festival at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, May 26.
LISTEN TO THE KCUR: Kansas City - Up To Date PIECE
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John Scofield picks up 2017 JJA nom for 'Guitarist Of The Year'
Posted At : April 24, 2017 12:00 AM
2017 JJA Jazz Awards Nominees were chosen by the votes of Jazz Journalists Association members. Nominations were made on the basis of work done in calendar year 2016, with the exception of Lifetime Achievement Awards categories, in which nominations are for a lifetime body of work. Members and others were able to submit their own work for consideration in the Photo of the Year category; a committee of JJA Members chose the nominees in that category from among the submissions. Winners of the 2017 JJA Jazz Awards in all categories will be determined by the votes of JJA Professional Journalist Members; and will be announced on May 15.
John Scofield picks up 2017 JJA nom for 'Guitarist Of The Year'
SEE JJA PAGE LISTING ALL NOMINEES
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John Scofield ADDed to Bowlive VII / jambands.com
Posted At : March 31, 2017 12:00 AM
Soulive continue to roll out the special guest lineup for Bowlive VII, when the eight-night event returns to Brooklyn Bowl this summer, and the Grammy-winning jazz guitar icon John Scofield is the latest addition. Scofield, who will be guesting with Soulive on June 15 during the second weekend of the run, joins a growing list of Bowlive VII additions that already includes Karl Denson and Steve Kimock on June 7, Doyle Bramhall II on June 8 and GRiZ and Son Little on June 14, along with longtime Soulive collaborators The Shady Horns.
SEE jambands.com PAGE
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John Scofield returns to Jazz at Lincoln Center / Albany Times Union
Posted At : March 27, 2017 12:00 AM
Guitarist John Scofield will take the stage at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Appel Room for four performances on May 5-6. Joined by Gary Grainger, Dennis Chambers, Bill Stewart, Larry Grenadier, and Joe Lovano. Scofield will present a retrospective: Quiet and Loud Jazz, which follows his 2017 GRAMMY Award wins for Best Instrumental Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for Country For Old Men. Scofield will add new insights to two of his most revered albums– Blue Matter (1986) and Quiet (1996) – exploring them for the first time since their original release.
READ THE FULL Albany Times Union ARTICLE
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John Scofield takes 'Country for Old Men' on the road / Music Fest News
Posted At : February 26, 2017 12:00 AM
During his storied 45-year career, John Scofield has played many different styles all branching from his jazz beginnings. Along the way, he has hooked up with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Marc Johnson, Dave Liebman, Jay Mcshann and Jaco Pastorius. His first recording was with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan on their Carnegie Hall Concert (1974). He emerged on the fusion scene as a member of the superfunky Cobham-Duke Band, and joined Gary Burton's quartet.
His first album as a leader, self-titled, was released in 1977. And since then, he has tangled with Bill Frisell in guitar free-for-alls and made a huge splash with A Go Go, an supremely funk album that really increased his prominence and that of his recording mates Medeski, Martin and Wood. He has toured with Phil Lesh & Friends, worked with the Metropole Orchestra, and released a gospel-tinged album (Piety Street) with George Porter, Jr., and Jon Cleary.
And his most recent efforts have been Uberjam Deux (2013), another MSMW record (Juice, 2015), and a fine record with Joe Lovano called Past Present (2015); he has worked with Lovano since the early '90s. That album won Scofield a Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Album. And a dynamite 1999 recording was released in 2015 where Scofield played with Gov't Mule, titled Sco-Mule.
Country For Old Men is Scofield's homage to such greats as George Jones, Dolly Parton ("Jolene!"), Merle Haggard, James Taylor, and Hank Williams among others. This album has Scofield playing alongside accomplished colleagues Steve Swallow, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart, and was produced by Scofield himself.
And Scofield doubled his pleasure, winning the Best Instrumental Jazz Album again. He also scored his first Grammy for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" from the album. And now Scofield is taking CFOM on the road. For the U.S. dates, which began last night (Friday, February 24th), the guitarist will be joined by Bill Stewart, Larry Goldings and Vicente Archer. Stewart has been a Scofield collaborator ever since their work with Swallow (bass) in a superb trio. Goldings and Sco first played together in 1994. On bass will be Archer. For the European dates, Sullivan Fortner will replace Goldings at the keyboards.
SEE THE FULL Music Fest News PAGE
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John Scofield tears up 'Country for Old Men' at SFJAZZ / Jazz Police
Posted At : February 21, 2017 12:00 AM
On a cold blustery winter night at SFJAZZ (February 19), guitarist John Scofield threw up a solid, "perfect game" piece of American-inspired music that was the antidote to the winds of winter and the blast of politics rattling our peace of mind. It is not our imagination that our culture, and music in particular, is taking a "back to the roots" turn right before our eyes. It is as if many players are intent on signaling a return to that time not so very long ago when folk, roots and protest music were in the air, and there was real community in the common vocabulary of songs that trumpeted common cause.
READ THE FULL Jazz Police REVIEW
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John Scofield plays Theatre Raymond Kabbaz / Daily Bruin review
Posted At : February 19, 2017 12:00 AM
Jazz music has fallen by the wayside in modern times, relegated from the quintessential American genre to elevator music. But musicians like John Scofield are stubborn, and they refuse to let the genre die. On Thursday, jazz guitarist Scofield performed music from his Grammy-winning album "Country for Old Men" at the Theatre Raymond Kabbaz.
Scofield, who won his second and third Grammy awards this year for best jazz instrumental album and best improvised jazz solo, opened his show with renditions of George Jones' "Mr. Fool" and Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler." Using popular songs was a smart way to ease the audience into his set. He combined familiar country themes with each band members' individual improvisational style, introducing the audience to the blend of musical styles to come. "We're playing all country music tonight," Scofield said after "The Gambler" ended with a solo that was more abstract jazz than country. "There's nothing funny about country," he joked.
READ THE FULL Daily Bruin REVIEW
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men wins 2 GRAMMY's for 'Best Jazz Instrumental Album & 'Best Improvised Jazz Solo'
Posted At : February 13, 2017 12:00 AM
Coming off a Grammy win earlier this year for his last album, Past Present, John Scofield has been largely in the spotlight over the last year, sitting in the with The Roots on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, gracing the cover of Downbeat and garnering the attention of NPR. His impressive 40-plus-year career has seen Scofield masterfully tackle multiple genres as well as several eclectic collaborations with everyone from Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, to Government Mule and Medeski, Martin & Wood, not to mention his own groups.
John Scofield - Country For Old Men wins 2 GRAMMY's for 'Best Jazz Instrumental Album & 'Best Improvised Jazz Solo'
READ Live For Live Music PAGE
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Beyond Blues - John Scofield / Premier Guitar
Posted At : January 1, 2017 12:00 AM
John Scofield is the embodiment of fusion. When he began recording as a leader in the late '70s, his fluid blend of jazz, bebop, blues, rock, and country music must have presented a marketing nightmare for the label. Scofield attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music, but his influences are anything but expected, and his sophisticated sound incorporates deep groove influences. As an improviser, he reveals an effortless command of modern, angular, and chromatic vocabulary.
For this column, I've recorded a simple bass loop over a funky 16th-note shuffle groove. The line indicates the A Dorian mode (A–B–C–D–E–F#–G), but since the harmonic information is so sparse, it's pretty easy to insert other sounds and make them work.
READ THE FULL Premier Guitar ARTICLE & LESSON
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men makes NPR Music ' 2016 Jazz Critics Poll'
Posted At : December 22, 2016 12:00 AM
After coming off a Grammy win earlier this year for his last album, Past Present, John Scofield began an exploration into his strong country and folk roots with Country For Old Men on Impulse!/Verve Label Group. Scofield's homage to such greats as George Jones, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, James Taylor and Hank Williams among others. Country for Old Men has Scofield playing alongside accomplished colleagues Steve Swallow, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart, and was produced by Scofield himself.
SEE NPR PAGE
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men makes 'glide Magazine top 10 jazz albums for 2016'
Posted At : December 20, 2016 12:00 AM
As 2016 comes to a final close, Glide recently chose its top rock/folk/alt/singer-songwriter albums of the year. However it would be wrong to leave out a list of the top jazz oriented albums of the year. Glide's resident jazz critic Doug Collette has chose his top ten albums in the jazz world of 2016. Lets take a look!
John Scofield- Country For Old Men: The venerable guitarist unites with old friends (keyboardist Larry Goldings, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart) for a foray into country music that is much more than just an exercise in style. In fact, Sco and co. render the songs just recognizably on their interpretations of material from Hank Williams, Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard, among others. Musiclovers only casually familiar with this genre (and/or these musicians), as well as devout fans of C&W, should find this album a source of pure pleasure.
SEE THE TOP 10
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men makes 'Observer 20 best jazz albums of 2016'
Posted At : December 20, 2016 12:00 AM
Country and jazz don't blend themselves together all that much these days. But in those rare instances where these two worlds collide, the results can bring about some serious magic. For Sco's second album on the revitalized Impulse! imprint, he joins forces with old friends and fellow creative legends Steve Swallow on bass and drummer Bill Stewart to embellish in the guitarist's pure love for such legendary country axes as Buck Owens and Leon McAuliffe of Bob Wills' Texas Playboys across imaginative interpretations of such faves as Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", Dolly Parton's "Jolene" and the recently departed Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried". The trio even transform Shania Twain's mom-jeans standard "You're Still The One" into a serious jam.
SEE The Observer TOP 20 PICKS
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men makes 'The Atlantic's favorites for 2016'
Posted At : December 18, 2016 12:00 AM
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Our Favorite 31 Songs of 2016 From Frank Ocean to Beyoncé to John Scofield, some of the best tunes from a year of great music. This isn't a definitive list of the year's best tracks. It's an alphabetically ordered selection of songs our staff writers and editors found themselves putting on repeat in 2016. You can listen along with our Spotify playlist.
John Scofield - You're Still The One from - Country For Old Men REVIEW - Yes, this is a jazz cover of Shania Twain's 1998 pop-country megahit; no, it's not a joke; yes, it is very, very good. Scofield, a leading jazz guitarist who cut his teeth with Miles Davis in the 1980s, has been equally at home in the straightahead and jam-band worlds recently, but on Country for Old Men (Get it? He'll reach senior citizenship on Boxing Day) he tries twang, and succeeds. The whole thing is a rollicking delight, with songs by the likes of Merle Haggard, George Jones, Dolly Parton, and the Carter Family rendered in his signature, almost vox humana guitar sound, but this less obvious choice is my unexpected favorite. Sco swings through the lilting melody and even drops a nonchalant, unobtrusive, and witty quote of Thelonious Monk's "Friday the 13th" into his solo.
SEE ALL 31 OF 'The Atlantic's favorites for 2016'
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John Scofield - Country for Old Men is 'GeorgiaStraight - Best Album for 2016'
Posted At : December 8, 2016 12:00 AM
Coming off a Grammy win earlier this year for his last album, Past Present, John Scofield's impressive 40-plus-year career has seen the guitarist masterfully tackle multiple genres as well as several eclectic collaborations with everyone from Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, to Government Mule and Medeski, Martin & Wood, not to mention his own groups. Next up is an exploration into roots music with 'Country For Old Men' on Impulse!/Verve Label Group. The release is an homage to such greats as George Jones, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, James Taylor and Hank Williams among others. Colleagues - Steve Swallow, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart, are on the date, and Scofield produced.
Here are Best albums of the year 2016 compliments Alexander Varty for thegeorgiastraight.
review: The punning title's no joke: the senior member of guitarist John Scofield's quartet, bassist Steve Swallow, is a spry 76. The concept-country songs given a jazz makeover-has also been around for a while, but trust me: once you hear Scofield and company tackle Dolly Parton's "Jolene" or Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried", you'll celebrate the wisdom of age.
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men is this week's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette podcast
Posted At : November 14, 2016 12:00 AM
Coming off a Grammy win earlier this year for his last album, Past Present, John Scofield has been largely in the spotlight over the last year, sitting in the with The Roots on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, gracing the cover of Downbeat and garnering the attention of NPR. His impressive 40-plus-year career has seen Scofield masterfully tackle multiple genres as well as several eclectic collaborations with everyone from Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, to Government Mule and Medeski, Martin & Wood, not to mention his own groups.
Next up for the acclaimed guitarist is an exploration into his strong country and folk roots with Country For Old Men. The new Impulse!/Verve Label Group release out September 23is Scofield's homage to such greats as George Jones, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, James Taylor and Hank Williams among others. Country for Old Men has Scofield playing alongside accomplished colleagues Steve Swallow, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart, and was produced by Scofield himself.
John Scofield's 'Country For Old Men' is the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Podcast for Sunday, 13 November 2016. Written by Rich Kienzle. LISTEN
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men / JamBands review
Posted At : November 12, 2016 12:00 AM
John Scofield's Country For Old Men would be an ideal subject for those blindfold tests where listeners need to identify details of an undisclosed piece of music. No doubt the inimitable blend of staccato blues and jazz fluidity in this esteemed guitarist could be readily pinpointed, as might some or all of his accompanists (who've regularly appeared on his records over the years): keyboardist Larry Goldings, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart.
But nailing the songs the quartet plays here might well be a greater challenge altogether, even perhaps, if you're sufficiently knowledgeable in the country genre to recognize "Mr. Fool" as a George Jones number just by way of Goldings' Floyd Cramer-like piano tinkling. Scofield and company's wry take on Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" becomes increasingly familiar as the seven-minute take proceeds, but the guitarist still only teases the melodic theme to a point within this speedy shuffle.
READ THE FULL JamBands REVIEW
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men / PopMatters review
Posted At : November 7, 2016 12:00 AM
Old reliable. It goes anywhere. Starts right up the moment you turn the key and, boy, does it get you there. Smooth ride, and there's a little kick from the engine when you need it - some growl, some power, ready to do some work in the passing lane as necessary. That's guitarist John Scofield - not a young upstart like he was in the 1970s with Gerry Mulligan or the Billy Cobham/George Duke Band. Not the engine of mature fire who powered Miles Davis's best 1980s band. Heck, you could argue that he's no longer the mid-life master who teamed up with saxophonist Joe Lovano to helm the hippest jazz quartet of the 1990s. "Sco" is almost 65, what used be called retirement age, and his new record addresses the age thing up front via a play on the Cormac McCarthy book title Country for Old Men.
READ THE FULL PopMatters REVIEW
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men / Jazz Weekly review
Posted At : October 11, 2016 12:00 AM
Fresh from winning a Grammy on his last album with Joe Lovano, guitarist John Scofield takes a side dirt road and plays music that fits the local VFW or Moose Lodge. He did a roots album a few years ago when he explored gospel music, so there's something in Scofield's dna that makes the Miles Davis alumnus veer his compass to America's heartland. This time around he teams up with Larry Goldings/B3, Bill Stewart/dr and Steve Swallow/b for some low ceiling'd atomospheres.
He picks and grins on an acoustic "I'm An Old Cowhand," but for most of everything else he gets the joint jumping with bona fide licks and grooves on "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Mr. Fool." The team blows smoke rings on "Bartender's Blues" and Scofield sounds like he's from the Cumberland Gap on "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." The rhythm team two steps with delight on Bob Wills' "Faded Love," and you can feel the beer on your whiskers during Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried." Lotta spit, and just enough polish. They are planning a tour; any stops in Oroville or Truckee?
SEE THE FULL Jazz Weekly PAGE
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Sco goes country / Paste
Posted At : October 7, 2016 12:00 AM
Welcome to Notes From New York, a monthly jazz column by Bill Milkowski that includes observations on the scene along with interview snippets, gossip and gig information.
Perennial poll-winning guitarist John Scofield came up playing with jazz legends like Stan Getz and Chet Baker, Billy Cobham and Miles Davis before launching his own remarkable solo career in the mid-‘80s. Over the decades, while recording for the Enja, Gramavision, Blue Note, Verve and EmArcy labels, the Connecticut-born six-stringer has shown an infinite capacity to swing while also demonstrating an authentic feel for funk, blues and New Orleans second line grooves. His recent collaborations with jam band pioneers Medeski, Martin & Wood, Phil Lesh & Friends and Warren Haynes' Gov't Mule have also revealed his penchant for reaching out to new audiences and exploring new musical avenues. On his latest Impulse! recording, Country for Old Men (the title is a wry reference to the Coen Brothers' 2007 movie No Country for Old Men), the guitar great applies his signature chops to faithful readings of the George Jones classic "Bartender's Blues" along with Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" and Dolly Parton's "Jolene." Elsewhere on this surprising release, Scofield and cohorts (bassist Steve Swallow, keyboardist Larry Goldings, drummer Bill Stewart) take liberties with some country classics, like their unabashedly swinging renditions of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and the Carter Family staple "Wildwood Flower."
The esteemed jazz guitarist reflects on his new musical direction on Country for Old Men: "I always wanted to do a country album. Being a young guitarist in the ‘60s, I checked out all kinds of music, and all kinds of music could be found on regular AM top 40 radio. The better musicians I met when I was a teenager would talk about jazz but also about country and bluegrass as higher forms of playing music. A lot of people were checking out Merle Haggard & The Strangers and Buck Owens & His Buckaroos. There was some serious playing going down with those bands but also just the songs and the great singing in the bluegrass tradition were very attractive to me too."
He explains that George Jones' soulful country singing had an impact on his own guitar phrasing as a jazz player. "For me and a lot of other people, actually, George represents the highest level of a certain kind of real down-home singing. His use of the melisima effect - all those soulful little extra notes - just blows me away. And it's not just George but the whole deep country sound that I love and feel at home with, actually. My mother was from the Deep South and I grew up hearing that sound on her voice so I felt very at home with the way those songs were sung by George Jones and others. You can hear country in my playing and also in my compositions like ‘Best Western' (from 1984‘s Electric Outlet) and ‘Wabash' (from 1987's Loud Jazz), which is based on ‘Wabash Cannonball.' And I also recorded Charlie Rich's ‘Behind Closed Doors' (on 2007‘s This Means That), which is one of the greatest country ballads. It's just so much fun to play like that. Some of these country songs allow the swing to happen and for real jazz to come about. And I really like that style where the two can come together."
READ THE OTHER Paste REVIEWS FROM Bill Milkowski
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John Scofield brings fresh sounds to Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival / Harvard Crimson
Posted At : September 27, 2016 12:00 AM
Some might say that jazz and country music belong on different continents. Yet at the opening night of his alma mater's annual Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival, John Scofield demonstrated that each genre is merely an island in a musician's pond and that bridges can be built to connect them. From the abstract unaccompanied guitar to the organ chords over syncopated drumming and the jazzier solos, the inherent nuance of the 10-song set list kept the spectators lively and won Scofield a standing ovation.
Scofield released his new album, "Country for Old Men," on the day of the concert to high expectations: His previous record, "Past Present," won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and was nominated for another award. Nevertheless, there was no evident pressure in the room as Scofield and his bandmates-drummer Bill Stewart, bassist Steve Swallow, and pianist and organist Larry Goldings-masterfully captured the calming spirit of country balladry and the vivid energy of western rock and roll.
READ THE FULL Harvard Crimson REVIEW
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John Scofield - Country for Old Men / theguardian review
Posted At : September 23, 2016 12:00 AM
Following last year's Grammy-winning Past Present, the improvisationally wily but sociably funky jazz guitarist John Scofield now presents a tribute to the country songs of American icons including Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton, with pianist/organist Larry Goldings, bassist Steve Swallow, and drummer Bill Stewart pitching in. Williams' I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry quickly becomes a fast bebop bass-walk, but Scofield always keeps his long, zig-zagging solo within earshot of the tune. Parton's Jolene begins as a dark and dramatic theme statement, and takes on the elemental rhythmic insistence of the classic John Coltrane quartet, while a fine account of Shania Twain's You're Still the One exhibits a tenderness caressed by Scofield's signature tonal creativity. Occasionally there's a disconnect between the convivial lilt of some of these tunes and the jazz grooves, but Scofield at full jazz-improv pelt is always something to behold.
SEE theguardian PAGE & WATCH THE VIDEO
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Alum John Scofield returns to Berklee Performance Center / bolton.wickelocal
Posted At : September 23, 2016 12:00 AM
John Scofield has been playing in so many different musical genres since he got his first guitar at 11, it's almost a crime to label him just a jazz guitarist. Early on it was rock, then R&B, then blues. But when jazz got hold of him, at around 16, it never let go. Yet when he and his longtime compadres Steve Swallow (bass), Bill Stewart (drums), and Larry Goldings (keyboards) take the stage at Berklee Performance Center on Sept. 23, the jazz they'll be playing will have a distinct country flavor.
Scofield's new album, "Country for Old Men," features, as its title hints, a selection of country classics done up in jazz stylings. It's a genre – make that a mix of genres – that Scofield, 64, a Berklee alum and a veteran of bands led by Miles Davis, Billy Cobham, Gerry Mulligan, and Chet Baker, as well as many that he's led under his own name, has been meaning to get around to.
"I was always aware of country music," said Scofield. "When I was coming up in the '60s, folk music was around and that was related to country pickin'. And there were certain crossover hits. Everybody who was into music couldn't avoid knowing about Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton back then. There were people who were folk and bluegrass players who were really good. So I became aware of this music. I never played it, but I was kind of a closet fan, and I loved it. So I wanted to do a record where we took some of these tunes and turned them into jazz.
READ FULL bolton.wickedlocal ARTICLE
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men / all about jazz review
Posted At : September 23, 2016 12:00 AM
Earlier this year, guitarist John Scofield won a Grammy for his album, Past Present. Released in 2015, Past Present came on the heels of tough times for Sco-the 2013 passing of his son, Evan, to sarcoma at age 26. Sco's music on the album was haunting and pained, the ache of a father and a family that endured the worst possible loss.
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His new album, Country for Old Men (Impulse!), released today, is on the same trail bound for similar praise and prizes. As the title indicates, the album is a merger of country and jazz with Sco's ringing fusion flavor backed by keyboardist Larry Goldings, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart. There's a saddle-and-stirrups quality to the music here-familiar cowboy tunes, Bakersfield romps, long-neck ballads and countrypolitan covers that Sco puts across with his singular jazz guitar. Songs such as Mr. Fool, Mama Tried, Jolene and Faded Love among other classics have a country feel and soul-but with jagged jazz improvisation. The result is truly fascinating. I can't recall another jazz artist so closely associated with the electric jazz revolution of the 1970s who has attempted such a blend or has pulled it off this artfully.
READ THE FULL all about jazz REVIEW
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John Scofield kicks off Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival / Boston Magazine
Posted At : September 21, 2016 12:00 AM
The Beantown Jazz Festival, Berklee's annual block party, is back. Spanning Boston's Columbus Avenue between Massachusetts Avenue and Burke Street, the free event will feature live performances, food vendors, and family-friendly activities. The festival's artistic director and Berklee professor Terri Lyne Carrington says it's not just for jazz enthusiasts. "Every year there's beautiful music," she says. "Sometimes it's Latin jazz, sometimes it's more R&B based, sometimes it's more blues. There's really something for everybody."
This year's roster includes a number of critically acclaimed artists, from seven-time Grammy-winner Al Jarreau, to Billy Hart Trio and Mili Bermejo. The main festival takes place on Saturday, running from noon until dusk across three stages.
Grammy-winning guitarist - John Scofield kicks off the festival on Friday night with music from his new record, Country for Old Men, at the Berklee Performance Center (7:30 p.m., ticketed). A Berklee alumnus, Scofield has a penchant for playing in Boston. He says, "I have a really close tie with the Boston music scene. It's really nostalgic. I really learned how to play jazz in this city."
READ THE FULL Boston Magazine ARTICLE
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John Scofield brings country and western to the Ardmore / Philly.com
Posted At : September 20, 2016 12:00 AM
At the same time that a young John Scofield was learning his first guitar licks, the country and rock music worlds were bleeding over into one another. In the late 1960s and early '70s, bands such as Poco and the Byrds were bringing country and folk influences into rock, while outlaw artists such as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were shaking up the country scene with a rock-and-roll look and attitude. A rock fan long before he discovered jazz, Scofield couldn't help but soak in some of those country sounds, too. "The '60s was this great, all-embracing hippie time," he recalled. "It was, 'Everything's good, man.' You'd listen to Ravi Shankar and John Coltrane and Buck Owens."
Even as he became renowned as a jazz guitarist, first as a member of Miles Davis' groundbreaking electric bands and then through a wide-ranging solo career, Scofield never forgot the lessons of his open-eared youth. Over the last few decades he's regularly crossed over into rock and jam-band territory, playing with the Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Gov't Mule, while occasionally incorporating elements of those genres as well as soul, hip-hop and electronica into his own music. Now he's exploring the country music that he heard during those formative years for the first time with his new album, Country for Old Men. Scofield performs this Saturday September 24 at the Ardmore Music Hall
READ THE FULL Philly.com ARTICLE
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men / Buffalo News review
Posted At : September 18, 2016 12:00 AM
John Scofield, "Country for Old Men" (Impulse). Certainly one of the wittiest jazz album titles of the year. Its full provenance is this: obviously an allusion to the Coen Brothers' Oscar-winning film "No Country for Old Men," taken from Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name which got its title from W. B. Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium." You've got to love a title like that, especially when it's a joke the musicians are making about themselves. The album is reasonably delicious. Ever since Ray Charles so dramatically figured out how to make "modern sounds in country and western music," country repertoire has been a congenial home for musicians whom no one would suspect being comfortable there. John Scofield is, in so many ways, the representative jazz guitarist of our era, which is why it's a delight to have a country repertoire record by him, full of country favorites. Scofield makes sure you know on the very first tune that he's not kidding about "going country" if he wants to. His opener', George Jones' "Mr. Fool," would be a comfy fit for a very hip lounge in Nashville. After that, forget it. "I'm So Lonesome I Could Die" is presented, thank God, without tears. It's straight ahead jet-propelled jazz in Scofield's best angular, even abstract mode, with Larry Goldings on piano and organ and bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart charging ahead with fierce velocity. Golding's solo devolves into electronic abstraction. Scofield says "Instead of ‘three choards and the truth,' it's two chords and the truth. We took that and took it into one chord and the truth." Those are the two poles – down home and completely abstract – the band travels between and the journey is something else. How about "Red River Valley" in which, admits Scofield, "we stole the top from Johnny and the Hurricanes' ‘Red River Rock'? Are you ready for Dolly Parton's "medieval" "Jolene" as a post-Coltrane modal beauty? This is jazz eclecticism for delight's sake and it's pure. Three and a half stars out of four. (Jeff Simon)
SEE THE FULL Buffalo News PAGE
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John Scofield - Country For Old Men / LondonJazz News review
Posted At : September 12, 2016 12:00 AM
The clue is in the title: Country For Old Men is John Scofield's take on country music. He may have tackled pieces of the genre before, but this is his first album dedicated to country. Whilst he may be paying homage to some of his influences, he is by no means in thrall to them. Some of the tunes he takes pretty straight - such as the opener, George Jones' Mr Fool - others are country through a jazz prism, and the jazz wins through.
The result can be slightly disconcerting, though not unpleasantly. With Steve Swallow on bass, Larry Goldings (organ and piano) and his regular drummer Bill Stewart, Sco makes the tunes his own. So whilst the opening chorus of Dolly Parton's Jolene might make one hesitate, the quartet settle down into an upbeat waltz, Goldings taking a fine piano solo which grows and grows before its resolution. READ THE FULL LondonJazz REVIEW
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John Scofield set to release 'Country for Old Men' at Berklee Performance Center
Posted At : September 9, 2016 12:00 AM
One of the Big Three of his generation of jazz guitarists (along with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell), John Scofield is unfailingly inventive and compelling, over a broad range of material. He'll unveil the music of his new CD "Country for Old Men" (did we mention the 64-year-old's wry sense of humor?) - featuring bassist Steve Swallow, keyboardist Larry Goldings, and drummer Bill Stewart - on its day of release, at Berklee. Scofield promises an "outlaw" jazz interpretation of the likes of George Jones, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Bob Wills, Patti Page, and Shania Twain.
SEE THE FULL Boston Globe PAGE
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'Jolene' from John Scofield's upcoming - Country for Old Men is a JazzTimes featured: Track Premiere
Posted At : August 12, 2016 12:00 AM
On his latest album, Country for Old Men, due out on Sept. 23 via Impulse!/Verve Label Group, jazz guitarist John Scofield, whose career spans over 40 years, explores his country and folk roots, paying homage to such greats as George Jones, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, James Taylor and Hank Williams. On Country for Old Men, the follow up to Past Present, which earned him a Grammy Award earlier this year, Scofield, who produced the album himself, plays alongside Steve Swallow, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart.
In support of the new album, Scofield will begin an international tour this September, including a week-long run at Blue Note in New York. Listen to JazzTimes premiere of Scofield's tribute to Dolly Parton, "Jolene,"
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John Scofield announces new Impulse!/Verve album - Country For Old Men / jambands.com
Posted At : August 5, 2016 12:00 AM
Guitarist John Scofield has announced he will release his new album,Country For Old Men, on September 23 via Impulse!/Verve. The album follows up his Grammy-winning Past Present, which took home the award earlier this year. The new album features a quartet rounded out by Steve Swallow, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart and was produced by Scofield. Songs included are classics from some songwriting greats like James Taylor, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, George Jones, Dolly Parton and more. Scofield will also be embarking on an international fall tour mostly with the album's lineup. Keyboardist John Medeski will replace Goldings on a portion of the tour. See the North American dates and the album tracklist below.
In support, John Scofield will tour North America this Fall. All dates w/ Goldings, Swallow & Stewart unless noted
September 4 Chicago, IL-Chicago Jazz Fest*
September 5 Detroit, IL-Detroit Jazz Fest^
September 23 Boston, MA-Berklee Performance Center
September 24 Ardmore, PA-Ardmore Music Hall
September 25 Washington, DC-The Howard Theatre
September 27 New York, NY-The Blue Note
September 28 New York, NY-The Blue Note
September 29 New York, NY-The Blue Note
September 30 New York, NY-The Blue Note
October 1 New York, NY-The Blue Note
October 2 New York, NY-The Blue Note
October 3 Indianapolis, IN-The Jazz Kitchen+
October 4 Indianapolis, IN-The Jazz Kitchen+
October 5 Evanston, IL-SPACE+
October 6 Muncie, IN-Canan Commons+
October 7 Bellefontaine, OH-The Holland Theatre+
October 8 Cincinnati, OH-Live at The Ludlow Garage+
(*) w/ Joe Lovano
(^) w/ Brad Mehldau, Mark Guiliana
(+) w/ Medeski, Swallow, Stewart
Country For Old Men Tracklist
1. MR. FOOL (Darrell Edwards / George Jones / Herbie Treece)
2. I'M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY (Hank Williams)
3. BARTENDER'S BLUES (James Taylor)
4. WILDWOOD FLOWER (Joseph Philbrick Webster)
5. WAYFARING STRANGER (Traditional)
6. MAMA TRIED (Merle Haggard)
7. JOLENE (Dolly Parton)
8. FADED LOVE (Bob Wills, John Lee Wills, Billy Jack Wills)
9. JUST A GIRL I USED TO KNOW (Jack Clement)
10. RED RIVER VALLEY (Traditional)
11. YOU'RE STILL THE ONE (Shania Twain / John Robert Lange)
12. I'M AN OLD COWHAND (Johnny Mercer)
SEE THE jambands.com
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John Scofield reunites with Brad Mehldau & Mark Guiliana for Montreux Jazz - WATCH THE INTERVIEW
Posted At : July 6, 2016 12:00 AM
John Scofield reunites with pianist Brad Mehldau and drummer Mark Guiliana for a trio tour that with a six-night, multi-set residency at NYC's Blue Note as part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival. Following the tour takes the trio to the UK and Europe throughout the month of July, including sets at the Love Supreme, Vienna, Gent, North Sea and Montreux Jazz Festivals, as well as stops in France, Italy, Spain, Israel, Turkey, and Germany. The trio reunites in the US in early September for the Detroit Free Jazz Festival.
The trio put on a great July 3rd show at Montreux, one of the most famous summer festivals in Europe which has existed for many years. Here are some pics from the Montreux Jazz experience.
AND WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH Sco on VIMEO also attached
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John Scofield | Joe Lovano Quartet play Ottawa Jazz Festival / Ottawa Citizen review
Posted At : June 26, 2016 12:00 AM
Continuing a collaboration that reaches as far back as their 1990 album Time On My Hands, guitarist John Scofield and saxophonist Joe Lovano returned to Ottawa on Saturday night for a blockbuster show at the National Arts Centre Theatre. Joined by the celebrated drum-bass pairing of Ben Street and Bill Stewart, the pair presented music mostly from Scofield's 2015 record Past Present. If you've attended one of the band's concerts over the past little while, the set list will come as no surprise.
Lovano's explosive Cymbalism kicked off the performance. The two frontmen's musical relationship was on display here, as they slipped in and out of the tune's melody between improvised exchanges. Somewhat remarkably, they never got in each other's way, and this same trick was also used on Scofield's melancholy Mr. Puffy. Throughout the concert, their rapport gave the impression of two old friends having an amiable (but animated) conversation. Lovano and Scofield complemented each other impeccably, as could be heard in their unison rendition of the melody of Scofield's Museum. On the blues Past Present, however, it was Stewart that stole the show with his brilliant interjections into the pair's improvised dialogue. The drummer also delivered a powerful solo over a closing guitar/bass vamp. In a poignant contrast, the band then shifted into Hangover, on which Lovano played with tenderness and lyricism.
READ THE FULL Ottawa Citizen REVIEW
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John Scofield's 9 tips for guitarists / musicradar
Posted At : June 24, 2016 12:00 AM
For his most recent album, Past Present, master fusion player John Scofield decided to revisit one of his earlier line-ups by inviting tenor sax player Joe Lovano and drummer Bill Stewart into the studio. Along with fellow fusioneer John McLaughlin, Scofield's playing is regarded by many as a vital step in the evolution of post bebop jazz The quartet was completed with Sco's mid-90s touring partner Larry Grenadier on double bass and the result is, as you might imagine, another sublime example of highly polished playing through nine original compositions. Along with fellow fusioneer John McLaughlin, Scofield's playing is regarded by many as a vital step in the evolution of post bebop jazz. As such, he is the perfect sounding board to reflect on the genre's current status. Is the culture of jazz still alive and kicking? Or was Zappa right when he noted that, "Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny…"?
READ John Scofield's 9 tips for guitarists on musicradar
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John Scofield - Joe Lovano Quartet set to play TD Ottawa Jazz Festival / Ottawa Citizen
Posted At : June 23, 2016 12:00 AM
"In my dreams," John Scofield says, "I would have one music that was the only thing that I did." Those are the musings of one of music's most adaptable, yet distinctive, electric guitarists. Over nearly four decades, Scofield, 64, has made exceptional records that slot into many of jazz's sub-genres. Broadly speaking, he oscillates between the swinging, largely acoustic jazz that traditionalists love and more rocking, electrified music.
Scofield's projects this year alone attest to his eclectic ways. A few weeks ago in New York, he was playing groovy, original electronica-influenced music with keyboardist Brad Mehldau and drummer Mark Guiliana, both several decades his junior. This fall, the guitarist is to release the album Country For Old Men, a collection of tunes by George Jones, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and even Shania Twain.
But don't expect any country music when Scofield, or Sco as he's more simply known in jazz circles, plays the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival this Saturday with the irreproachably jazzy quartet that he co-leads with saxophonist Joe Lovano. Scofield makes sense of the many settings that he finds himself in by saying: "Actually, I think the different idioms inform each other, and it's all jazz, so to speak. I don't want to play any kind of electric music that doesn't have a breathing, improvisatory style. It's pretty much me - I pretty much go back and forth."
READ THE FULL Ottawa Citizen ARTICLE
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John Scofield/Joe Lovano Quartet set for TD International Jazz Festival / Ottawa Citizen review
Posted At : May 19, 2016 12:00 AM
Since 1978, John Scofield, now 64, has released a dizzying 40-plus albums under his own name, spanning the gamut from all-star acoustic jazz albums to fusion blowouts to groovy, New Orleans-themed concept discs to the jammiest of jam-band outings. Over the last dozen years, the one constant - apart from Scofield's signature steely sound and mastery of ear-catching improvisation - has been that the new Sco disc would be different from the one just before it.
That goes for Scofield's Past Present, which was released last fall. It's a reunion album of sorts, involving saxophonist Joe Lovano and drummer Bill Stewart, with whom Scofield famously played and recorded in the early 1990s, plus bassist Larry Grenadier. The group, billed as the John Scofield/Joe Lovano Quartet, plays the National Arts Centre on June 25, presented by the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival, but with Ben Street on bass.
Past Present consists of nine Scofield compositions that check in with his favourite musical themes, with swinging and bluesiness at the top of the list. The title track is a rugged, bopping blues that features Scofield and Lovano conversing in their shared musical language can before there are solos proper. After its twangy hoedown theme, Chap Dance allows the quartet to rip into rhythm changes.
READ THE FULL Ottawa Citizen ARTICLE
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John Scofield set to play six shows at Melbourne's Bird's Basement / The Australian
Posted At : April 26, 2016 12:00 AM
Grammy award-winning jazz-rock guitarist John Scofield will play six shows at Bird's Basement in Melbourne next week. The American musician won the Grammy for best instrumental jazz album earlier this year for his latest release Past Present and was also nominated for best jazz solo performance. Scofield, 64, has forged a long career, having performed internationally and collaborated with greats including Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Charles Mingus.
He was last in Australia for the 2012 Adelaide International Guitar Festival, whenThe Australian's John McBeath heard "a versatile and at times incendiary player, equally at home in the bop idiom as well as jazz/rock, funk, blues and soul". During his Melbourne residency, May 3 to 8, Scofield will perform songs from hisCountry for Old Men project, with interpretations of American country classics. He will be accompanied by bassist Scott Colley and drummer Bill Stewart.
SEE THE FULL Australian PAGE
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John Scofield Joe Lovano Interview with Hawaii PR
Posted At : March 4, 2016 12:00 AM
GRAMMY-nominated guitarist and bandleader John Scofield released his new album Past Present on September 25th via Impulse!/Universal Music Classics. The album, picked by the New York Times as one of the highlights of the fall season, is Scofield's first with an update of his "elastic, swinging" (NY Times) early-90's quartet of Joe Lovano, Bill Stewart and Larry Grenadier (who steps in for Marc Johnson and the late Dennis Irwin) since the quartet released the acclaimed album's Meant To Be, Time on My Hands and What We Do on Blue Note Records. Scofield and Lovano have a special relationship. Getting to know each other in the early 70's in Boston when both were students at Berklee College of Music. The two are in town with the quartet through Sunday at the Blue Note Hawai'i, a demonstration of an enduring musical and personal relationship. They spoke about it with HPR All Things Considered Host Dave Lawrence.
LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT WATCH THE INTERVIEW
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Joe Lovano and John Scofield havin a good time at the Dakota
Posted At : February 9, 2016 12:00 AM
Longtime collaborators Joe Lovano and John Scofield had a funky good time at the Dakota Jazz Club on Monday night, and so did their Minneapolis audience. Tenor saxophonist Lovano and guitarist Scofield first jammed together as students at the Berklee College of Music, back in the early 1970s. Since then, they have followed parallel paths to modern jazz stardom, with their paths occasionally intersecting for an album or tour. They recorded together back in the early 1990s, reunited in 2008, and came together again last year to record a new CD, "Past Present." They are back tonight. Check it out.
READ THE FULL TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press REVIEW
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John Scofield - Past Present / makes 'Something Else' Best 2015
Posted At : January 6, 2016 12:00 AM
When summarizing the best that jazz had to offer for this past year, I was tempted to write that it was a very good year for jazz, but then as far as I'm concerned, every year is a good year for jazz.For an art form that people have said for years is dying, there's a lot of exciting, fresh records that come out every year and 2015 was no exception.
There were so many worthy new titles that the list of my picks for the best of the best is limited only to those where we've gave it the fully considered assessment and published a review on it. There are lots more that sounded good but didn't get that formal appraisal. So many terrific new releases, so little time, ya' know?
John Scofield – Past Present: A perfect companion to those early 90s albums Scofield made leading a bop quartet featuring sax giant Joe Lovano, and the years in-between quickly melt away as soon as the record starts playing.
SEE THE FULL Something Else LIST
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John Scofield on NPR: Weekend Edition Sunday
Posted At : December 28, 2015 12:00 AM
Jazz guitarist John Scofield has had a pretty remarkable career. Without even finishing music school, he found himself on the Carnegie Hall stage playing with jazz legends Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan. Then it was on to Miles Davis, his own successful jazz-funk fusion groups, and even greater exposure playing with jam bands. His latest release, Past Present, takes him back to a sound he perfected in the early 1990s - and it's up for two Grammys in 2016.
Scofield didn't come from a particularly musical family, nor was there much music happening in the suburban Connecticut town where he grew up. But he is definitely a product of his place and time: the early 1960s. "I think music was actually really important to everybody in that generation," he says. "It just was the only thing: If you weren't a high school football player, you were into music. And it was everything to me." LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT
SEE THE WEAA: Baltimore PAGE
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John Scofield - Past Present Picked - Best of 2015 NPR Jazz Critics Poll
Posted At : December 21, 2015 12:00 AM
NPR Music is pleased to present the results of a poll where 147 jazz critics selected their favorite recordings of 2015.
For 10 consecutive years, this poll has been a labor of love by eminent critic Francis Davis. It's grown tremendously since he initially submitted the consensus of 30 writers to The Village Voice in 2006. Over the last month, print journalists, bloggers and broadcasters nominated more than 700 different albums. We're thrilled to host his exhaustive project on our site.
John Scofield - Past Present Picked Best of 2015 NPR Jazz Critics Poll
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John Scofield touring with Jon Cleary this month / Jambands
Posted At : December 3, 2015 12:00 AM
This month, guitarist John Scofield is teaming up with longtime friend and pianist Jon Cleary for a tour that will see the two delve into the R&B traditions that both musicians hold dear. Seemingly a disparate duo-Cleary, England-born but New Orleans-based in every sense, and Scofield, steeped in modern improvisational jazz fusion-the two have found common ground in the music of legends like Professor Longhair, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Little Willie John.Cleary doesn't claim to be a jazz expert ("I don't know where these notes come from, but I love it," he says of Scofield's playing) and Scofield has nothing but praise for Cleary's style, saying playing with him "is like playing with the whole band." Together, they make it work. Below, the two studied and accomplished musicians go back and forth about how they first met over 20 years ago, their current project and why their styles match up so well onstage.
Scofield release his new Impulse!/Universal Music Classics album - Past Present was picked by the New York Times as one of the highlights of the fall season, is Scofield's first with an update of his "elastic, swinging" (NY Times) early-90's quartet of Joe Lovano, Bill Stewart and Larry Grenadier (who steps in for Marc Johnson and the late Dennis Irwin) since the quartet released the acclaimed album's Meant To Be, Time on My Hands and What We Do on Blue Note Records.
READ THE Jambands Q&A
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VOA-Jazz America covers John Scofield and new release - Past Present
Posted At : November 16, 2015 12:00 AM
Russ Davis takes you backstage to recent festivals and clubs to talk to four of the most popular guitarists in jazz today. You'll hear the thoughts of Pat Metheny & John Scofield backstage at the recent Detroit Jazz Festival, Mike Stern after his performance at the New York City club Birdland and Al Di Meola after receiving the "Miles Davis Award" from the Montreal Jazz Festival along with some of their great music!
GRAMMY-nominated guitarist and bandleader John Scofield has just released - Past Present on Impulse!/Universal Music Classics. The album, picked by the New York Times as one of the highlights of the fall season, is Scofield's first with an update of his "elastic, swinging" (NY Times) early-90's quartet of Joe Lovano, Bill Stewart and Larry Grenadier (who steps in for Marc Johnson and the late Dennis Irwin). Here's the full show playlist
21-22 NOVEMBER 2015 - Special Feature…FOUR CURRENT GUITAR GREATS: PAT, JOHN, MIKE & AL!
DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND & NORAH JONES…ruler of my heart (medicated magic)
KENNY BURRELL…salty papa (the road to love)
* Pat Metheny Interview
PAT METHENY & SWR BIG BAND…hommage-edit 2 (hommage a eberhard weber)
PAT METHENY GROUP…American garage (American garage-1979)
ANOUSHKA SHANKAR…lasya (traces of you)
ORAN ETKIN & CHARENEE WADE…after you've gone (what's new: reimagining benny goodman)
* John Scofield Interview
JOHN SCOFIELD…get proud (past present)
CHARLES MINGUS…goodby pork pie hat (1959)
CHICK COREA & GARY BURTON…hot house (hot house)
HOUR TWO...
JAZZ AMERICA...SHOW #1704...21-22 NOVEMBER 2015
JOEY DEFRANCESCO…trip mode (trip mode)
SHIRLEY HORN…big city (travelin' light-1967)
* Mike Stern Interview
MIKE STERN & SCOTTISH NATIONAL JAZZ ORCHESTRA…splatch (American adventure)
MIKE STERN & ERIC JOHNSON…tidal (eclectic)
COLEMAN HAWKINS…in a mellow tone (night hawk-1960)
JACKY TERRASSON & SLY JOHNSON…come together (take this)
* Al Di Meola Interview
AL DI MEOLA…tangier (elysium)
MILES DAVIS…paraphernalia (miles in the sky)
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John Scofield - Past Present / Jazz & Blues review
Posted At : November 13, 2015 12:00 AM
GRAMMY-nominated guitarist and bandleader John Scofield's new album Past Present on Impulse!/Universal Music Classics, was picked by the New York Times as one of the highlights of the fall season, is Scofield's first with an update of his "elastic, swinging" (NY Times) early-90's quartet of Joe Lovano, Bill Stewart and Larry Grenadier (who steps in for Marc Johnson and the late Dennis Irwin) since the quartet released the acclaimed album's Meant To Be, Time on My Hands and What We Do on Blue Note Records. Scofield will celebrate the album release with a six-night run of shows at the venerable Blue Note club in New York City from October 13-18 (bassist Ben Street will sit in for Grenadier during this run).
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John Scofield - Past Present / Jazz Profiles
Posted At : November 5, 2015 12:00 AM
John Scofield is a storyteller, with a good sense of pace and timing. He relishes a tight, in-the-pocket groove and even displays occasional splashes of humor to keep things interesting. Our most recent visit with with Sco's music was prompted by a preview copy of John's latest CD and was prompted by a preview copy of his latest Impulse! CD - Past Present.
Max Horowitz at Crossover Media was kind enough to send along the following press release and, since I couldn't improve upon it, I thought I'd share it with you "as is." Remember, you can always go on www.crossovermedia.net and click on the artist search in the upper right hand corner for more information about the artists they are working with and to listen to samples of music from their latest recordings.
"On Past and Present, John Scofield updates his early-'90s quartet with drummer Bill Stewart and saxophonist Joe Lovano by recruiting bassist Larry Grenadier for his fetching, appropriately titled impulse! debut, Past Present. Between 1990 and 1992, the celebrated guitarist released three well-received discs – Meant to Be, Time on My Hands and What We Do – for the Blue Note label as the John Scofield Quartet. On those records, either Marc Johnson or Dennis Irwin played bass. Nevertheless, Grenadier also has history playing with Scofield; he toured with Scofield in support of the 1996 disc, Quiet.
WATCH THE CerraJazz Video & READ THE FULL Jazz Profiles ARTICLE
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John Scofield - Past Present / Kind of Jazz review
Posted At : October 29, 2015 12:00 AM
Guitarist John Scofield comes across as a somewhat restless spirit, on record, at least, each project different from the last. Piety Street(2009) featured gospel and New Orleans music, whilst 54, released the following year, saw him collaborate with Vince Mendoza and the Metropole Orchestra. Since then, he has recorded an album of straight-ahead jazz (A Moment's Peace – 2011), returned to his groove-driven Überjam project (Überjam Deux – 2013) and reunited with jazz-funk band Medeski, Martin & Wood for two albums, Live (2011) andJuice (2014).
The title of his new album, Past Present, suggests he felt the time was right for a period of reflection about the past. This may well have had something to do with the tragic passing of his son, Evan, in 2013. Indeed, a couple of the song titles on the new record make reference to his son's illness. But it seems the time was also right for a period of musical reflection, as Scofield has chosen to reunite his quartet with Joe Lovano, who recorded three classic albums for Blue Note in the early 1990s. Bill Stewart returns on drums, and Larry Grenadier stands in for the late Dennis Irwin. READ THE FULL Kind of Jazz REVIEW
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John Scofield - Past Present / relix
Posted At : October 28, 2015 12:00 AM
When John Scofield's son died from cancer in 2013, the jazz guitarist did what artists have always done: channeled his grief into his art. Past Present is the result, but you don't need to know its backstory to embrace it. In fact, although the blues coats its nine tracks as a whole-as was the case with 2013's Überjam Deux-much of this new record projects joy and hope, and an unbridled freeness, as if to say that living one's life to the max is the most potent antidote to pain. For Past Present, Scofield called on two mainstays of his heralded early ‘90s quartet-saxophonist Joe Lovano and drummer Bill Stewart-and brought in the ubiquitous bassist Larry Grenadier to flesh out the bottom. There's a decided looseness to the group's swing, and a swing to their looseness: On numbers like the album-closing title track, the breakneck-paced "Chap Dance" and the soul-infused "Get Proud," Scofield and crew find a groove, embody it and summarily discard just enough of it to keep the surprises coming. The ballads, including "Mr. Puffy" and "Hangover," never sag or drag, and "Enjoy The Future," an album highlight, takes its own good advice: Its pace is sprightly, its demeanor is optimistic. Good for him.
SEE THE relix PAGE
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John Scofield - Past Present / Kentucky.com review
Posted At : October 27, 2015 12:00 AM
There are probably a dozen inferences that you could take away from the title of John Scofield's newest recording, Past Present. It could be the return to the kind of animated jazz that the guitarist was known for before contemporary alliances with Govt. Mule, Medeski Martin & Wood and Phil Lesh introduced his music to a new generation of predominantly rock and jam audiences. There also is the matter of the band backing Scofield on Past Present, which harks back to a trio of outstanding Blue Note albums that he cut roughly 25 years ago. Finally, there is the whole sense of musical invention that cuts to the core of Past Present. Its nine tunes, all Scofield originals, might suggest a glance backward to a sound and band from years ago. But a flashback it isn't.Past Present couldn't sound retro if it tried.
The album makes two lasting and commanding impressions from the get-go. The first deals with the musical simpatico between Scofield and saxophonist Joe Lovano, his principal foil from the 1990s band, largely reassembled here. The two converse with remarkable fluency throughout Past Present, especially on the immensely animated Hangover, trading swing riffs and playing off each other's bright phrasing (especially in the way Lovano's tenor melody cracks as if he were laughing at a joke). The tune also is a blast because its catalyst is the other returnee from Scofield's '90s band, drummer Bill Stewart. A player of deceptive intensity, Stewart set the tune's colorful pace with an introductory roll and remains in the rhythmic driver's seat for much of the album.
The other impression deals with Scofield's sense of groove. Maybe it's the work he has engaged in with younger, less jazz-specific artists in recent years (he jams with effortless glee alongside the avant-jam trio Medeski Martin & Wood on last year's splendid album Juice). But his construction of the rubbery rhythm to the Past Present opening tune, Slinky, as well as the way it quickly engages into sly but giddy unison with Lovano before backing into a solo with obvious reverence for the blues, is a journey unto itself. The same goes for Get Proud, with a guitar groove born of soul and blues that bounces about through the entire tune.
READ THE FULL Kentucky.com PIECE
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John Scofield - Past Present / Jazz Weekly review
Posted At : October 26, 2015 12:00 AM
Guitar vet John Scofield tries to show that you can go back home. Back in the 90s, he teamed together with Joe Lovano/ts and Bill Stewart/dr for some nice and funky sounds. With a different bassist than before in Larry Grenadier, Scofield and his old chums go back to the winning format with a collection of new material.
The two front liners sound comfy together on the lithe "Slinky" and have lots of fun on the soulful "Get Proud." Scofield's warm tone rings well on "Chap Dance" and "Enjoy the Future!" and Lovano sounds surprisingly warm on "Museum." Grenadier gets a couple chances in the spotlight, and uses it well, while Stewart is flexible and consistent with a rich pulse. The feel is casual throughout, with a reflection that hangs over the mood that is answered in the personal liner notes. Intimate and cozy, the music grows on you like a thoughtful conversation.
Yes, they've reunited, but both Scofield and Lovano come across wiser in the latest group hug.
READ THE Jazz Weekly REVIEW
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Catching Up With John Scofield / JamBase
Posted At : October 13, 2015 12:00 AM
John Scofield's new album Past Present has such an indefinite, all-encompassing title because there's a lot to encompass.
It's a reunion, for sure: that early 1990s Scofield lineup that features Sco, saxophone legend Joe Lovano and drummer Bill Stewart, along with bassist Larry Grenadier this time around, is once again presiding. It's a also a comment on how music with an extensive past survives, remains sturdy and vibrant, and is open to re- interpretation, hence the very Sco-like infusions of blues, soul and Americana into a somewhat mellow jazz framework heard here.
And as Scofield tells us, it's not a tribute album, but it also doesn't unencumber itself from personal loss and reflection – the death of Scofield's son, Evan, from sarcoma in 2013, and the song titles, such as "Mr. Puffy," that evoke him.
Scofield caught JamBase up on Past Present and a full slate of touring with the Lovano/Stewart/Grenadier group, including a six-night, 12-set stand at New York's Blue Note that begins tomorrow (Tuesday, October 13.) We also got a glimpse into what he has planned with Brad Mehldau and in the idiom of country music, as well as looked back to this year's thrilling Sco Mule tour with Warren Haynes and Gov't Mule. READ THE FULL JamBase INTERVIEW
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John Scofield - PopMatters interview
Posted At : October 10, 2015 12:00 AM
Jazz has relatively few "stars" these days, musicians who might be described the way actors sometimes are: as bankable, as the ones who can "open" a film with some guaranteed box office. Even famous jazz musicians such as legend Sonny Rollins or Wynton Marsalis aren't moving many discs these days.
Jon Scofield, a guitarist who at the age of 63 isn't exactly a matinee idol, would probably laugh at being compared to a movie star. In conversation Scofield is unassuming and genial, every bit the polite kid raised in Wilton, Connecticut who happened to discover a passion for music. And who, despite being a "jazz" musician, finds himself a guitar hero in 2015.
Truth be told, when a record company wants to start a new imprint to put out jazz, John Scofield is the go-to musician. He'll get them off on the right foot.
With Past Present, Scofield is making his first appearance on the new/old Impulse! label, which is the latest of Universal Music's jazz brands. Impulse, of course, was the home in the 1960s to John Coltrane and other firebrands of the avant-garde, even though it was started by producer Creed Taylor and found early success putting out Ray Charles'sGenius+Soul=Jazz. This mixture of the daring and the soulful fits Scofield beautifully.
And it makes sense that in helping with reviving Impulse!, Scofield has gone back to his own past to revive a band that is arguably one of the most important of the last 25 years: his quartet with Joe Lovano on saxophone. Past Present features Lovano, drummer Bill Stewart (also from the previous configuration), and Larry Grenadier on bass, who replaces the late Dennis Irwin.
PopMatters talked to Scofield about the new record, the band, and his status as soft-spoken jazz hero. READ THE INTERVIEW
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John Scofield: Past Present / The Irish Times review
Posted At : October 2, 2015 12:00 AM
John Scofield is one of the defining guitarists of contemporary jazz, a generous-minded musician with an instantly recognisable sound and a flair for putting groups of like-minded players together. Back in the early 1990s, with saxophonist Joe Lovano, he released a string of albums on the Blue Note label – Time on My Hands (1990), Meant to Be (1991) and What We Do (1993). Well, they're back, but it is particularly in the context of an acoustic quartet – here with the very considerable talents of bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Bill Stewart – that they are able to display their almost supernatural empathy.
All nine tracks on Past Present are Scofield originals, and the writing is worthy of the playing: Chap Dance is an up-tempo swinger that is so catchy, you are singing the out-head on the first listening; Hangover is a pensive waltz with folky overtones; Get Proud has a jaunty, 70s-cop-show melody that sits in Lovano's horn like Jim Rockford sits in his car: and Mr Puffy is vintage Scofield, a gentle swinger full of twists and surprises that can turn nasty at any moment. READ THE FULL Irish Times REVIEW
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John Scofield gets the old gang back for - Past Present / Something Else
Posted At : September 26, 2015 12:00 AM
Fresh off his stint with Miles Davis in the mid-80s, John Scofield made a series of signature fusion records that got his solo career off the ground, earning him a reputation as a master guitarist and a rather good composer. But as the 80s turned into the 90s, Scofield made stylistic U-turn, making straight-up bop records leading a quartet that included a young, up-and-coming tenor saxophonist named Joe Lovano. Eventually settling on Bill Stewart on drums and Marc Johnson on bass, the John Scofield Quartet hardly stopped Scofield's momentum; in fact it catapulted him into the upper reaches of jazz guitarists, a status he enjoys to this day. Stewart and Lovano's star power had likewise skyrocketed (Johnson was already well known from his stint in Bill Evans' last trio).
The past is now the present, and Scofield got most of the old gang back together again for his Impulse Records new release, Past Present, out on September 25, 2015. Replacing Johnson (and later, the late Dennis Irwin) is another exceptional bassist, Larry Grenadier.
Put in few words, Past Present is a perfect companion to those trio of records of long ago, and the years in-between quickly melt away as soon as the record starts playing. You can draw a direct comparison between and Meant To Be‘s "Big Fan," as both swing rock hard with rapid-fire hooks, and everyone puts in seasoned solos. "Season Creep" is one of Sco's softer swings, full of soul as on Time‘s "Let's Say We Did", and the guitarist plays with genuine affection.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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John Scofield - Mr. Puffy on NPR: Songs We Love
Posted At : September 25, 2015 12:00 AM
Guitarist and composer John Scofield's 2015 album is called Past Present. And that's what it is: four jazz musicians very much in the moment, looking back at events that informed the music they're playing-and listening back to a sound three of them created some 20 years ago.
Scofield's own remarkable musical history goes back even further. He did stints with jazz greats such as Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, Charles Mingus, Jay McShann and Gary Burton all while he was still in his 20s; before landing a high-profile gig with the Miles Davis band of the early 1980s. Since then, Scofield has explored funk, acid jazz and the music of New Orleans and Ray Charles with his own groups. LISTEN TO Mr Puffy AND READ FULL PIECE
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John Scofield 'Past Present' feature on capital acid jazz
Posted At : September 22, 2015 12:00 AM
John Scofield new album Past Present on Impulse!/Universal was picked by the New York Times as one of the highlights of the fall season, is Scofield's first with an update of his "elastic, swinging" (NY Times) early-90's quartet of Joe Lovano, Bill Stewart and Larry Grenadier (who steps in for Marc Johnson and the late Dennis Irwin) since the quartet released the acclaimed album's Meant To Be, Time on My Hands and What We Do on Blue Note Records. Scofield will celebrate the album release with a six-night run of shows at the venerable Blue Note club in New York City from October 13-18 (bassist Ben Street will sit in for Grenadier during this run).
Getting good spins and a feature on Gary Vercelli's Acid Jazz via capradio. LISTEN
Capital Public Radio covers the entire Sacramento metropolitan area including the cities of Auburn, Davis, Roseville, Folsom, Elk Grove, Yuba City and Marysville. It also reaches Fairfield, and Vacaville on the fringes of the San Francisco Bay Area. KXJZ's signal also reaches the northern San Joaquin Valley including the cities of Stockton and Modesto through repeater station KUOP (91.3 FM), Quincy through KQNC (88.1 FM) and the Lake Tahoe and Reno areas through repeater station KKTO (90.5 FM). These stations are collectively known as "Capital Public Radio."
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John Scofield - Past Present, on the next 'Jazz America on VOA'
Posted At : September 21, 2015 12:00 AM
GRAMMY-nominated guitarist and bandleader John Scofield will release his new album Past Present on September 25th via Impulse!/Universal Music Classics. The album, picked by the New York Times as one of the highlights of the fall season, is Scofield's first with an update of his "elastic, swinging" (NY Times) early-90's quartet of Joe Lovano, Bill Stewart and Larry Grenadier (who steps in for Marc Johnson and the late Dennis Irwin) since the quartet released the acclaimed album's Meant To Be, Time on My Hands and What We Do on Blue Note Records. Scofield will celebrate the album release with a six-night run of shows at the venerable Blue Note club in New York City from October 13-18 (bassist Ben Street will sit in for Grenadier during this run).
'Get Proud' from John Scofield's Past Present is featured on the next Jazz America on Voice of America. Voice of America provides programming for broadcast on radio, TV, and the Internet outside of the U.S., in English and some foreign languages.
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John Scofield: 'Uberjam Deux' makes JAZZ2K: CD Pick for January
Posted At : January 7, 2014 12:00 AM
WSPN: Saratoga Springs NY - Jazz2K Radio Show returns to the airwaves tonight (Tuesday, January 7), and among the five pieces of goodness you're going to hear as they wind our way through the first weeks of 2014 is John Scofield: Uberjam Deux (Decca/emArcy). here's JHunter's review
Forget the rules about sequels that we got from "Scream II": The real first rule about sequels is that they usually suck – lookin' at you, "Die Hard (insert Roman numeral here)." Happily, Scofield follows the lead of "Aliens" and "The Two Towers," making this sequel to the guitarist's 2002 Verve release Uberjam both a logical extension from the original and a kickass good time! True, Scofield's never really been away from this style, what with his presence on the Jam Band festival scene and his brilliant collaborations with Medeski Martin & Wood. Even so, having crunchy morsels like "Boogie Stupid" and "Al Green Song" definitely warms things up on a really cold day.
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John Scofield plays Filharmonica Podlaska in Bialystok, Poland TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 24, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B. John Scofield performs at the Filharmonica Podlaska in Bialystok, Poland TONIGHT!! Sunday Nov. 24th@7pm.
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John Scofield will play at the Podlasie Opera in Gdansk, Poland TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 23, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield will play at the Podlasie Opera in Gdansk, Poland TONIGHT!! Saturday Nov. 23rd
The performance is TBA.
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B.
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John Scofield plays the Kinotheatr Roalto in Chorzow, Poland TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 22, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield performs at the Kinotheatr Roalto in Chorzow, Poland TONIGHT!! Friday, Nov. 17th
The performance starts at 8pm.
John Scofield is definitely the most important today, in addition to Pat Metheny, guitar player in the world of jazz, blues and funk music. It is characterized by: outstanding craftsmanship and unparalleled flexibility instrumental repertoire (guitarist does not shy away from new sounds and rock riffs - but always firmly embedded in harmony), which are of great artistic and commercial success of his music. Great guitar technique and the first recognizable guitar sound refers to the various strands of American tradition and the music he creates, for many years combined generation of music lovers and listeners, not only of jazz but also blues, rock and even soul music and gospel.
Scofield is a guitarist and composer, creating the greatest albums of modern jazz, who has worked with the most outstanding personalities of contemporary improvised music, min. such as Miles Davis, George Duke, Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Zbigniew Seifert, Joe Lovano, Jack De Johnetta, Larry Coryell, Bill Frisell, Mike Stern, Pat Metheny, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Billy Cobham, McCoy Tyner, Marc Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Michael Breacker, Brad Mehldau, Dave Holland, Al Foster, Joe Henderson, Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, and many others.
The new album Uberjam Deux relaunches a decade ago and the album "Uberjam". As he suggests, "we used all possible styles, but there is dominated by dance rhythms. could say that it is something like African music in isolation. It rhytm and blues and afro-beat, reggae and house, but always in a funk issue."
In Katowice, Scofield will play a concert with the band was reactivated Uberjam Band - music full of powerful rhythms, sounds funky, drum and bass, acid jazz and captivating solos from the border of jazz, rock and blues.
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John Scofield performs at the Theatre Lino Ventura in Nice, France TONIGHT!! Nov. 16th
Posted At : November 16, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield performs at the Theatre Lino Ventura TONIGHT!! Nov. 16th
The performance will start at 8:30pm in Nice, France.
Among jazz guitarists, Scofield is one of the best. He took his first steps in jazz along with Gary Burton, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Liebman, Steve Swallow... In 1982, Miles Davis hired him to play jazz funk. After three years, he left Miles for the former P-funk drummer Dennis Chambers. It will continue later with Medeski, Martins and Wood. It resumes today Uberjam project, the richest from jazz funk to regge through pop, rock and electro. A living legend in Lino Ventura!
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John Scofield will perform at Salon IKSV in Istanbul, Turkey TONIGHT!! Nov. 14th
Posted At : November 14, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield will perform at Salon IKSV TONIGHT!! Nov. 14th
The performance starts at 9:30pm in Istanbul, Turkey.
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B.
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John Scofield plays Salon IKSV in Istanbul, Turkey TONIGHT!! & TOMORROW
Posted At : November 13, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B. John Scofield and Uberjam play Salon IKSV TONIGHT!! & TOMORROW Wednesday & Thursday Nov. 13th & 14th 9:30pm in Istanbul, Turkey.
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John Scofield plays the Archa Theatre in Prague, Cz Republic TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 12, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B. Scofield will perform with Uberjam at the Archa Theatre TONIGHT!! Nov. 12th 8pm in Prague, Cz Republic.
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John Scofield plays the Wolf-Ferrari-Haus in Ottobrun, Germany TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 11, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B.Scofield will perform with Uberjam at the Wolf-Ferrari-Haus in Ottobrun Germany TONIGHT!! Monday Nov. 11th
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John Scofield plays the Muziekpodium Paradox in Tilburg, Netherlands TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 10, 2013 12:00 AM
In 2013, the legendary "Uberjam" band of guitarist John Scofield back together in the studio and on stage. With this group put Scofield and Co.. a unique fusion of jazz and funk with electronic sounds and beats down. Ultimately, "Uberjam" one of his most popular and hippest bands of his career. Main man next to John Scofield in this band is guitarist / computer manipulator Avi Bortnick. During this tour they are joined by Andy Hess on bass (Robben Ford, John Scofield Band, Adam Levy) and Louis Cato on drums (Marcus Miller, Wynton Marsalis, Stevie Wonder).
Scofield and Uberjam play at the Muziekpodium Paradox TONIGHT!! Sunday Nov. 10th at 7:30pm in Tilburg, Neth.
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John Scofield play Amsterdam's Bimhuis TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 9, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield heard for years in the top three jazz guitarists, alongside Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell. His Uberjam Project mixes jazz with contemporary beats and electronics. 'Sco' feels like a fish in the water at these musicians, who play just as tight on the beat as the best funk bands. John Scofield has played with Miles Davis in 1985. Following the example of his teacher, he combined jazz with funk, rock and hip-hop beats on the successful albums Uberjam (2002) and Up All Night (2003). Now he is back with the same band in which rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick stoke the fire with adventurous electronic effects.
Scofield and Uberjam play at Bimhuis TONIGHT!! Saturday Nov. 9th at 8:15pm in Amsterdam, Netherlands
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John Scofield play Theatre 140 in Brussels, Belgium TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 8, 2013 12:00 AM
What may well be the guitarist John Scofield is a unique voice in jazz today. Nobody else has been able to develop it as a synthesis of blues and jazz. Passionate black music enthusiast Jimi Hendrix, he arrived in 1983 in the orchestra of Miles Davis. It is with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell a major guitarist in the history of jazz.
With his project Uberjam (album released in 2002), Scofield we balance a mix of jazz, jazz-rock, funk rhythms or bases r'n'b in psychedelic colors. It explores new worlds while returning to the essence of jazz. Artist chameleon, it is on stage that his music takes its actual size, loaded with a bluesy feeling that touches the heart.
Scofield and Uberjam play at Theatre 140 TONIGHT!! Friday Nov. 8th@ 8:30pm in Brussels, Belgium.
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John Scofield plays Kulturzentrum Das Haus in Ludwigshafen, Germany TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 7, 2013 12:00 AM
Ten years ago John Scofield surprised his fans (and not only) with the album "Uberjam" Scofield presented the same sense of variety and surprises with a new album. As ironic as a world music album came along, Scofield showed with four arms and initially also sounded like, quickly morphed into a groove emphasized confrontation with funk and drum and bass. After he explored many different paths a decade and seven albums, bowed to Ray Charles and a beautiful ballads album ("A Moment's Peace") grossed Scofield returned this year and presented to the Groove "Uberjam Deux". Knowledgeable, winking and full of wit wide the musicians here a musical Roots landscape between "Boogie Stupid" and "Dub Dub" before us, pulling the hats in front of Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Harvey Mandel and forget the blues and resilient West Coast no sound."Uberjam" is history classes, but not nostalgic, but based again today, and very danceable. What is a song so beautiful? "Curtis Knew". Scofield also.
Scofield and uber play the Kulturzentrum Das Haus TONIGHT!! Nov. 7 @8p Ludwigshafen, Germany.
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John Scofield performs at the Jazz Fest Wien in Vienna, Austria TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 4, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B. Scofield and Uberjam play Vienna, Austria 'Jazz Fest Wien' TONIGHT!! Nov. 4th.
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John Scofield plays Berliner Festspiele / Germany TONIGHT!!
Posted At : November 3, 2013 12:00 AM
The older John Scofield gets, the investigator he outpaces the peloton of the jazz mainstream. Eleven years ago he celebrated with "Uberjam" one of his great successes groove jazz. If he connects with the issue "Deux" (the title of his latest CD) to the first UberjamAbenteuer, then only human, because musically he finds new recipes using fresh ingredients.Never before has sounded, the former companion of Miles Davis and regular guest with the concise Berlin Jazz Festival and reduced as in this stylistic retread band. "Sco" impresses with short, razor-sharp attacks on as usual rousing grooves, with dub radio or sometimes have more in common than with jazz. Scofield plays the Berliner Festspiele / Germany TONIGHT!! Nov. 3rd at 8pm.
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John Scofield plays the Festival de Jazz Onze Plus TONIGHT!! Lausanne, Switzerland TONIGHT!! Oct. 31st
Posted At : October 31, 2013 12:00 AM
More than seventeen years after a triumphant concert at JazzOnze + Festival, here is the Big John Scofield back in the fullness of the sixties. Subtle blend of sophisticated modern jazz, rock and blues decoiffant low-down, the style of John Scofield can qu'enthousiasmer lovers groove high emotional content. Accompanied masterfully by Uberjam Band with guitarist Avi Bortnick to almost telepathic understanding with the leader and drummer Louis Cato which we could admire the drive with Marcus Miller. Scofield plays the Festival de Jazz Onze Plus TONIGHT!! Oct. 31st Lausanne, Switzerland.
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John Scofield will perform at The Blockley in Philadelphia, PA TONIGHT!! Oct. 25th
Posted At : October 25, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield will perform at The Blockley TONIGHT!! Oct. 25th
The performance will start at 9pm in Philadelphia, PA.
One of the "big three" of late 20th and early 21st century jazz guitarists (along with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell), John Scofield's influence grew in the '90s and continued into the 21st century. Possessor of a very distinctive rock-oriented sound that is often a bit distorted, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, fusion, and soul-jazz. He started on guitar while at high school in Connecticut, and from 1970-1973 Scofield studied at Berklee and played in the Boston area. After recording with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker at Carnegie Hall, Scofield was a member of the Billy Cobham-George Duke band for two years. In 1977 he recorded with Charles Mingus, and later joined the Gary Burton quartet and Dave Liebman's quintet. His own early sessions as a leader were funk-oriented. Between 1982 and 1985 Scofield toured the world and recorded with Miles Davis. Since that time he has led his own groups, played with Bass Desires, and recorded frequently as a leader for Verve, Emarcy, Gramavision, and Blue Note, using such major players as Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Eddie Harris, and a host of others.
Scofield started a long-term relationship with the Verve label in 1996 with his acoustic album Quiet. He cut the funky A Go Go with Medeski, Martin & Wood in 1997, while 2000's Bump featured members of Sex Mob, Soul Coughing, and Deep Banana Blackout. Released in 2001, Works for Me featured a more traditional jazz sound, but for 2002's Uberjam and 2003's Up All Night, he was back to playing fusion. Drummer Bill Stewart and bassist Steve Swallow rounded out the John Scofield Trio for 2004's cerebral and complex live album EnRoute. In 2005, Scofield paid tribute to legendary soulman Ray Charles with That's What I Say. He featured a number of guest vocalist/musicians, including Dr. John, Warren Haynes, and Mavis Staples.
In 2007, Scofield released his debut for Emarcy, This Meets That. Once again, the set was theme-related and featured the guitarist in the company of a large horn section -- winds as well as brass and reeds -- playing original compositions as well as those from the rock and pop vernacular. Two of the more radical offerings on the album were the completely rearranged jazz-rock versions of Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors" and the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Scofield took another left turn on 2009's Piety Street. He hired Jon Cleary on keys, ex-Meters bassist George Porter, and drummer Ricky Fataar to play on a set of spirituals and gospel tunes, all done in a grooved-out soul-jazz manner. In 2010, he was the featured soloist on the Metropole Orkest's Emarcy date 54. Scofield returned to a theme-based format for his next date for the label, A Moment's Peace, a collection of ballads that ran the gamut from Gershwin to the Beatles, and included some original compositions. The set, which was released in September of 2011, featured the guitarist in the company of drummer Brian Blade, organist Larry Goldings, and bassist Scott Colley. Also in 2011, MSMW Live: In Case the World Changes Its Mind was released by Indirecto Records. The double-length set is culled from the Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood 2006 world tour; its contents reflect material off Scofield's A Go Go and the MSMW studio offering Out Louder. Over a decade after Uberjam, the guitarist rounded up some of his collaborators from that disc -- Avi Bortnick (guitar and samples), Adam Deitch (drums) and guest John Medeski -- along with Andy Hess (bass), and Louis Cato (drums), to issue Uberjam Deux in July of 2013.
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John Scofield and Uberjam play Tokyo's Blue Note TONIGHT!! through Tuesday
Posted At : October 20, 2013 12:00 AM
Name board that ignited the jam-band boom from "Ubajamu". Genius guitarist ever-changing, John Scofield unfolds in Japan for the first time the music world new album hot topic of "Ubajamu de". He debuted in the mid-'70s, co-starring Billy Cobham, Gary Burton, and Terumasa Hino et al. I am active in the Miles Davis band between 1985 from 1983, was to expand the fan base. While working in groups of their own, mainly to introduce the go-getter many musicians, including Dennis Chambers, and is engaged in a collaboration with the members "Medesuki, Martin & Wood" in "Mitazu" or thereafter. Schofield says, "not a mere sequel of "Ubajamu ", a piece of a new area" and for the latest work. You can not afford to miss the "current" of his that keeps opening new ground! John Scofield and Uberjam play Tokyo's Blue Note TONIGHT!! through Tuesday October 20-22. Shows start at 7pm.
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John Scofield will perform at the Shanghai Jazz Festival in Shanghai, China TONIGHT!!
Posted At : October 18, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield will perform at the Shanghai Jazz Festival TONIGHT!! Oct. 18th
The performance will start at 8pm in Shanghai, China.
JOHN SCOFIELD this year reunites his legendary Uberjam Band. This group pioneered Scofield's fusing of jazz, funk and electronic music to become one of the defining bands of his career. One of the "big three" of current jazz guitarists (along with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell), Scofield was the 1998 winner of the Montreal Jazz Festival Miles Davie Award. He possesses a distinctive rock-oriented sound, and is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, fusion and jazz soul. John Scofield: guitar, Avi Bortnick: guitar / samples, Louis Cato: drums, Andreas Hess: bass.
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John Scofield will play at the Festy Festival in Roseville, VA TONIGHT!! Oct. 12th
Posted At : October 12, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield will play at the Festy Festival TONIGHT!! Oct. 12th
The performance time is TBA in Roseville, VA.
The Festy gives us a unique experience to reach out to our all-time heroes, and John Scofield is high on that list. One of the greatest improvisers ever, Scofield has worked with everyone from jazz giants Miles Davis and Chet Baker, to jam-legends Phil Lesh and Medeski Martin & Wood (the list is so long). Most amazing is the constant evolution of this legendary career. Scofield is the ultimate intersection of integrity music and crowd-inspired improvisation, and we could not be more psyched to have him at the Festy.
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B. After leading and writing for various funky bands in the 80's and recording and performing with MMW in the 90's, Scofield started the Uberjam project in 2000. Once he found super rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick, he played with various bass and drum teams searching for the right chemistry and found it for two cds... Grammy Nominated Uberjam and Up All Night. The Uberjam sound starts with compositions written for his lead guitar, Avi's funky rhythm guitar and sampled loops in front of electric bass and drums. The project has been reunited in 2013 for the May release of a new recording - Uberjam Deux and worldwide touring.
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John Scofield returns to UCLA's Royce Hall TONIGHT!!
Posted At : October 5, 2013 12:00 AM
Electric guitarist John Scofield returns to Royce Hall TONIGHT!! Saturday October 5. This time around, he presents his raucous, electronic-infused Uberjam Band featuring Andy Hess on bass, rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick, and Tony Masonbehind the drum kit. Together they create a dizzying fusion of jazz, funk, atmospheric and electronic music.
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John Scofield plays Utah State University TONIGHT!!
Posted At : October 4, 2013 12:00 AM
John Scofield plays the Morgan Theatre of the Chase Fine Arts Center@ Utah State University TONIGHT!! Friday Oct. 4th at 7:30p.
Scofield toured and recorded with Miles Davis from 1982 - 1985 and has recorded over 30 albums as a leader. He is an adjunct professor of music at New York University and tours the world 200 days of the year.
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John Scofield's Uberjam plays the Triple Door in Seattle, TONIGHT!!
Posted At : October 2, 2013 12:00 AM
Far from being a pastiche, Uberjam demonstrates the cohesive unit that this group has become. Whether it is adding Indian samples or dub bass on "Acidhead," or former Average White Band drummer Adam Deitch laying in the phat-ist of phat grooves, it is apparent that Scofield has come up with another classic ensemble--one well equipped to take jazz into the 21st century
John Scofield's guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70's and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B.
Scofield and uberjam play the Triple Door in Seattle, TONIGHT!! Wednesday October 2.
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Happy Labor Day weekend. John Scofield & Uberjam play Detroit Jazz Festival
Posted At : September 1, 2013 12:00 AM
Guitarist John Scofield, one of the principal innovators of today's jazz guitar, brings guitarist Avi Bortnick bassist Andy Hess drummer Tony Mason, and Uberjam to the Detroit Jazz Festival. TODAY, September 1, 2013.
Uberjam has just released: Uberjam Deux, a new recording. Scofield says:
"We explore different forms of groove music…We get into funk, Afrobeat, reggae, house music, R&B…Many of the new tunes are co-written by Avi and myself.
The 34th annual Detroit Jazz Festival is the world's largest free jazz festival and is spread over four days and four stages. Headliners include: 2013 Artist in Residence Danilo Pérez, David Murray Big Band with Macy Gray, Ahmad Jamal, Charles Lloyd and Friends featuring Bill Frisell, Joshua Redman Quartet with string orchestra, John Scofield Überjam, McCoy Tyner Trio with special guest Savion Glover, Yellowjackets, Gregory Porter, and Robert Glasper, among others. Hundreds of Detroit regional artists are performing within national groups this year as well as headlining their own sets.
READ THE myFoxDetroit.com ARTICLE
READ Uberjam Deux HUUF POST PIECE