Here he is closer to Jim Hall than Halvorson, with a chromatic and linear approach to the strong melodic lines. It’s a fine example of a very different aspect of Scofield’s playing. Scofield’s Waltz,” dedicated to you-know-who, was recorded with Brad Mehldau in 2000 on Scofield’s album Works for Me. “Honest I Do” is from Scofield’s 1991 Grace Under Pressure album on Blue Note, done here as a ballad in his wobbly, processed sound with sliding pitches - a reminder that he was pioneering this style back when Mary Halvorson was just a Hershey Bar in her daddy’s back pocket (to borrow a line from Laurie Anderson). There are several tracks that Scofield recorded earlier, making this record something of an informal career retrospective. Scofield also recorded “Coral” on 1999’s As Long As You’re Living Yours-the Music of Keith Jarrett (various artists), but this version is cleaner, brighter, and more deliberate. Keith Jarrett’s unusual melody is stated only at the end. With the steady metronomic beat behind him, Scofield can solo in his characteristic behind-the-beat way. Scofield’s background comping is mostly in straight quarter notes, supportive but not calling attention to itself, not unlike Freddie Green with the Count Basie band. The opening track, “Coral,” is a good example of the new context for the familiar sound. That went away and was replaced, I think, by, hopefully, this more delicate approach of pinpointing the beauty of the strings.” “I am so used to playing with a slamming band, which is what I love to do, and there’s a certain muscularity in that. “I think there’s a delicateness that I have acquired from playing at home alone,” he told the Herald. Scofield is a legendary road warrior and team player, but the forced time at home led him to explore a different side of his talent. Like so many other musicians around the world, the Covid pandemic forced even the most experienced players back into the woodshed. So I am having to respond to some music and it’s almost like I’m playing with another person. The guitarist told The Boston Herald, “When I play solo, I make these little guitar loops on the fly, I don’t do prerecorded loops. There are other places when he solos over looped fragments for texture but, for the most part, you’re hearing Scofield duetting with Scofield. Scofield’s loops are sometimes background comping the length of entire choruses (as far as I can tell, or they are simply multi-track overdubs). He plays with a “looper,” although he’s not soloing over short phrases only seconds long, as Jaco Pastorius liked to do. Scofield solves the problem, partially anyway, by overdubbing himself. King (who, to my knowledge, never did a solo album). In this sense, he’s more like the great blues guitarists such as B.B. Still, this solo album is a surprise because Scofield is generally a one-note-at-a-time kind of guitarist. A solo album (often several of them) has been seen as a birthright for great guitar players, as it is for jazz pianists. He has had a wildly diverse and steady career stretching across many genres. In some ways, it’s hardly a surprise, since Scofield is in the top 1% of major living jazz guitarists by any measure. Now that he’s 70, it’s only right that Scofield takes a victory lap with his first solo album. Many jazz musicians were influenced by Miles Davis, but only a handful exerted an influence on Miles’ own playing: Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Ahmad Jamal, and John Scofield. As the technology evolved, Scofield’s signature sound expanded with it to include several expressively soulful electronic effects, which brought him into alignment with his frequent musical partner Bill Frisell. Scofield has a characteristic attack: he hovers his way into and out of a phrase, a trademark vibrato which is wide but not rapid, and an angular post-bop lyrical style in his improvised melodies that resembles no one else’s. He’s always had his own distinctive identity, even from his earliest recordings, which now date from almost 50 years ago. John Scofield is one of those guitarists whose sound is identifiable within three notes, no matter whether he’s playing mainstream jazz, fusion, country, rock, or experimental music. Now that he’s 70, it’s only right that guitarist John Scofield takes a victory lap with his first solo album.
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