Scofield

1980's Bar Talk features a young John Scofield already showing the virtuosity on guitar that subsequently made him a giant in his field. Scofield – who honed his chops with artists like Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Chet Baker, and Charles Mingus – displays his talents here as both a player and composer. Scofield is joined in the venture by Steve Swallow on bass and Adam Nussbaum on drums – a perfectly balanced trio. The Connecticut-born Scofield, who studied jazz at the renowned Berklee School of Music in Boston, spent much of his professional life gigging in Europe. This recording was made by the trio during one of its European tours. The album was well received at the time of its printing in 1980. Its influence has grown, becoming a jazz guitar classic, often listed as a favorite recording by professional critics, other musicians, and fans alike.

This Meets That finds guitarist John Scofield looking both backward and forward. It's his first recording for the Emarcy label, but for the occasion Scofield resurrected the trio he'd used on several previous albums, most recently 2004's EnRoute: bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart. Never one to rest on his laurels, Scofield has throughout his career applied his virtuosity to several different streams of jazz, ranging from fusion-esque to orchestral to straight bop. This Meets That is something of a mixed bag. The opening track, the Scofield-penned "The Low Road," is a swinging funk jam that's one of several tunes on the record to employ a four-piece horn section. It's a smoker of a track, with Scofield often teasing with distortion but never straying so far away that it might be called unmelodic…

The collaboration heard on 54 had its origins back in the 90's when Vince Mendoza asked John Scofield to play on his first album. John has since been featured on two of Vince’s records and his guitar sound and improvisational skills work well within Vince’s concept. When Mendoza assumed directorship of The Metropole Orchestra, he and Scofield decided to collaborate again with a primary focus on Mendoza’s arrangements of Scofield compositions as performed with The Metropole Orchestra.

Over the course of his four-decade career, guitarist John Scofield has maintained a successful dual career that alternates purer jazz with projects that skirt its edges and are aimed at a larger demographic. Not that there's anything wrong with that. His That's What I Say: John Scofield Plays The Music of Ray Charles (Verve, 2005) garnered critical and popular acclaim, keeping him on the road for the better part of a year, including a stellar performance in Gatineau, Quebec, near Ottawa, Canada, in October, 2005. After the exciting and stylistically assimilative This Meets That (EmArcy, 2007), Scofield turns to the blues/gospel-inflected Piety Street, a diversion for him, that's absolutely credible—and, in many ways, inevitable.

While it's true this is gospel music re-visioned by Scofield, it's still a gospel record, and carries within it the heart of that music's great traditions – melody, complex harmonics, and lyricism. This is a winner all the way through.