A.Even jazz musicians don’t get it right. With the exception of John Scofield. It may be due to a quality of the guitarist that the cool jazz guru Miles Davis quickly sensed at the time. When the two bumped into each other in the early 1980s, Miles brought the young man from Dayton, Ohio into his open pool of musicians. Reason: Now he finally has someone who can teach his guitarist Mike Stern a little understatement. It may be unclear whether the restrained John Scofield tamed the wild Mike Stern; their interplay at Miles was short-lived anyway. What remains to be said, however, is that John Scofield’s never triumphant guitar playing, far removed from all starry, secured him the sympathy of the guild and opened many doors in jazz and other musical genres.
Anyone who asks a jazz guitarist today about his role models or rockers who they appreciate as a jazz musician can make bets that the name Scofield will come up. This is of course primarily due to his musical competence, and in turn with an almost encyclopedic variety of styles, which he masters without posing as a musical universal scholar. The best example of how John Scofield doses his skills and discreetly indicates his knowledge is the track “She Was Young” from his most recent recording “Swallow Tales” from last year with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart. Towards the end of the improvisations – cleverly prepared on his Ibanez AS-200 from 1986 – sharp distorted tones appear as if blown over from another world of sound. And shortly thereafter, a rock ‘n’ roll lick follows, as remembered by the legendary Chuck Berry, before he started one of his curious duck walks across the stage. It doesn’t take more to show that nothing musical is alien to him.
A musical rejuvenation treatment with no frills
After training at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, John Scofield made a spectacular entry into the professional music scene in 1974 when Gerry Mulligan reunited with Chet Baker at New York’s Carnegie Hall, before joining Billy Cobham’s power band. This was followed by musical highlights, appearances with Charles Mingus and Gary Burton, with Lee Konitz, Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner, Joe Lovano and finally enrollment at Miles Davis’ private jazz university. From Miles he probably also learned to give young musicians a chance and at the same time to give himself musical rejuvenation treatments. It was fascinating how it changed stylistically and yet always remained the same, always with this clear, sometimes angular, melodically tangible, blues-oriented game without virtuoso frills.
This becomes noticeable in the chamber music condensation with Marc Johnson’s “Bass Desires”, the duo album with Pat Metheny “I Can See Your House from Here” and the exotic Indian trips on “Überjam”, then with his soul jazz adaptations with “Up All Night ”or the folk excursions with Larry Goldings on“ Country for Old Men ”. When the British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage was looking for some jazz soloists with Ensemble Modern for his orchestral work “Blood on the Floor”, the choice fell on John Scofield. And in this gloomy, melancholy avant-garde composition, too, John Scofield made his part “Elegy for Andy”, which is completely fixed in notes, with its characteristic, distinctive jazz articulation, without actually playing jazz. Among today’s jazz guitarists he is one of the most productive, versatile, original, open and certainly one who has remained spiritually young. He will be seventy on Boxing Day.
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