Courtesy of John Scofield
Photo by Gunnar Holmberg







Verve Records

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH JOHN SCOFIELD


John Scofield and Bill Frisell are my favorite guitarists (not to slight John Abercrombie, Joe Morris, or Mike Stern). And I am not into the guitar at all. I think I own two Wes Montgomery records. Sco has always caught me off guard. First, he won his way into my heart with superb Blue Note records like Time on My Hands, What We Do, and Meant to Be that helped put Joe Lovano on the map. Soon after, the guitarist unleashed Quiet, a killer acoustic effort with Wayne Shorter guesting on tenor, followed by A Go Go and the newly released Bump (both with members of the hip, Medeski Martin and Wood). Sco just reinvents himself with the times. He is the Madonna of improvised music. Nice. So I present unto you, Sco, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Well, I started playing guitar when I was eleven and was into just trying to learn a few chords really. I learned some pop songs and that gradually got more and more important in my life. I loved music and I was checking out rock and roll and got into blues heavily and then took guitar lessons from a guy who was into jazz. This was in Connecticut, where I grew up. He was a good bebop player. He turned me onto bebop when I was about sixteen years old, into jazz music and that was it. I've been a jazz addict ever since. I then moved up to Boston and went to the Berklee School of Music.


FJ: How long were you at Berklee?

JOHN SCOFIELD: Two years,two and a half years. I loved it in Boston. I had come from a small town in Connecticut, so it was great to be thrown in there with a thousand other nineteen-year-old jazz maniacs.


FJ: You were only in your early twenties when you played Carnegie Hall with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan for a Thanksgiving concert in 1974.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Yeah, I got to play with those guys. That was my first gig in New York was a live at Carnegie Hall concert that was record CTI Records and so the pressure was on. I was in Gerry Mulligan's band and Gerry had hired me to join his band in '74 and then we played some with Chet and I played a little wit Chet later on his record, You Can't Go Home Again. I idolized those guys and it was great to be around them a little bit and to play that kind of music with that of temperament. It was wonderful.


FJ: You were a member of Miles Davis' band for a number of years, it is always of deep interest for me because he was such an enigma and so much has been written about him.

JOHN SCOFIELD: As well as being a celebrity, which he was and this enigmatic figure that was very controversial and would say things, I knew him as a great trumpet player, bandleader, and composer, and just a musician, who was all about music. That is the Miles that we knew, the musicians that played with him. That is the important Miles. They are on record, what he did and his music. I loved it. When I first started to have bands, after I had played with him, I kind of tried to act like he did and then I quickly found out that that is not going to work at all (laughing). He was kind of a dictator from the old school and that didn't work with me. I did learn a lot about the subtleties of combining musicians and what could happen if you played a certain way and playing with space and organizing a night of music or an album of music and mainly letting the inspiration come while you are playing and being patient and allowing the music to unfold.


FJ: You recorded several excellent albums on Blue Note and a familiar name, Joe Lovano, in your quartet.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Well, thanks, Fred. I went to the Berklee School with Joe. I have known Joe since then. We have known each other around New York all this time, more than twenty years. I always loved his playing. I think he is a phenomenon too. There is nobody like Joe. He brings something to the music, some special energy and he swings so hard. He has got such roots. I mean he is so phenomenal. I think whether he played with me or not, we'd be listening to him. We have a good thing when we play. We played together last summer too (with Dave Holland and Al Foster). It worked out really well. We hope to do a record together again in a year or so. He is just one of those people that I have met in my time that I really have felt a connection with. I look forward to playing with him some more.


FJ: Let's touch on the three albums you have released on the Verve label, first, Quiet. In a past life, when I was doing regional work for Tower, I put it on a listening post and it consistently sold.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Thanks, Fred, thanks. I like that one too. It really was fun to make. It was different because I wanted to do some more harmonic music that was sort of quieter and I wanted to orchestrate it for a orchestral horn section with French horns and alto flutes and all. I got Wayne Shorter to play on a few cuts and that was such a thrill and a half. He's one of my idols and I decided to play acoustic guitar all the way through because it's the music I thought. It is something different for me. Yeah, I am proud of the record and I worked hard on the arrangements. Bill Stewart, Steve Swallow, wow. Thanks for listening to that one.


FJ: You followed that up with A Go Go, an album you did with Medeski, Martin, and Wood. The image that is prevalent in jazz is that it so polarized and A Go Go dispels that rumor.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Yeah, yeah, some guys like straight-ahead and some guys don't like that. It's all Medeski, Martin, and Wood and me. Here's the thing, Fred, I heard those guys and I just loved their groove and the stuff that they were going for and they liked R&B and a lot of the same stuff that I liked, the Meters and James Brown and stuff. They brought that to their music, but with an improviser kind of head. I just thought it would be perfect to play with them and so I called them up and we did it. The reason we did it was because of a like-mindedness in the musical conception.


FJ: And your latest release, Bump.

JOHN SCOFIELD: On my new record, Bump, that was kind of my return to funky kind of music, A Go Go and Bump is the same genre, kind of, but there is no organ on it and I overdubbed more guitars and I invited all these guys from these different groove bands that I played opposite of after the A Go Go thing came out. I started playing those jam band festivals. I heard Deep Banana Blackout and Soul Coughing and Sex Mob and these bands and I decided to use some of those musicians on Bump and put it together and Chris Wood played bass too. Kenny Wollesen and Tony Scherr, I know them as jazz musicians. They are just fantastic.


FJ: I saw you at one of the indie rock gigs at the Wetlands in New York over the summer last year.

JOHN SCOFIELD: I would just play these little jam band gigs that would have a few different bands and it has been fun, but for kids, for dancing.


FJ: You played with DJ Logic.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Oh, yeah, when I was playing with Logic. We were just improvising, but it was fun. DJ Logic is incredible.


FJ: His turntables are an instrument. I saw him improvise.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Yeah, the idea of can you mix a DJ with "jazz." It all depends on who is playing and Logic has a very tasteful approach and musical approach and he is into playing with improvisers, with jazz musicians and it is a great combination with him. Somebody else may be hard to play with, but not Logic.


FJ: Aren't you concerned you are offending the purists?

JOHN SCOFIELD: I think it is confusing to some people. I try not to think about it as far as worrying about what am I. I like funk and I like straight-ahead jazz too. When I play with one kind of group, I may have a little more bebop in me and another group, I may do something else. Blues has always been part of my thing. I think every guitar player has the blues. It is almost built into the instrument with blues phrasing. I just don't worry about it. I try not to (laughing).


FJ: Tour plans?

JOHN SCOFIELD: Oh, yeah, Fred, I am going to be all over the place. You are in Orange County?


FJ: Need time away from the shiny lights of Los Angeles.

JOHN SCOFIELD: Well, I will be playing at the Coach House and we are playing in LA at USC (University of Southern California).


FJ: My alma mater.

JOHN SCOFIELD: This is April 15, 16, 17, around in there.


FJ: Who is in the band?

JOHN SCOFIELD: I will have the drummer from the record, Eric Kalb from Deep Banana Black and Mark De Gli Antoni from Soul Coughing on keyboard samples. I have been touring and the receptions been great.


FJ: The Wetlands gig made me realize just how vibrant the music can be among the younger generation, if presented in an unpretentious fashion. Can jazz be conveyed to the younger generation of today?

JOHN SCOFIELD: It is capable of reaching some of them. I don't think it is going to become like the Dave Matthew's Band or something, like a big, huge pop thing. Right now, the young audience, college age audience is really comfortable with improvising and they like it. And they like things like Logic, making different things happen and going on a jam and having it go different places and having that creative magic happen in the room. It's just fantastic. You would think that that would translate to a lot of them getting into jazz. The same spirit in the music would be there. I think the future is really good.

Fred Jung is Editor-In-Chief and wishes he were somewhere else. Comments? Email him.