Something old, something new

Every time John Scofield plays Prague, he's with a different group. This time, he's bringing a quartet to Lucerna Music Bar, which just happens to be one of his favorite clubs in Europe.  

Scofield is one of the best and most popular jazz guitarists of our times, and luckily he comes regularly to Prague, where he always finds a large and welcoming crowd. He was last in Prague for the Agharta Jazz Festival in fall 2008, with his Piety Street Band. That summer, his trio played in the Bohemia Jazz Festival on Old Town Square, where Scofield was given a lifetime achievement award.

Though he's been leading his own groups on tours since the 1970s, initially recording for Enya and Grammavision, then through the '90s on Blue Note Records, Scofield only became widely known to the public (and especially to a younger generation of jazz fans) with the release of his 1998 album A Go Go, recorded with a group of younger avant-groovers, Medeski Martin & Wood.

"A Go Go is definitely our most popular recording and one of my favorites," Scofield admits to The Prague Post on the phone from his home in northern Westchester County, New York.

His follow-ups, the similarly electro-funked groove album Bump (2000), and his most ambitious experiment to date, Überjam (2002), both on Verve, were also recorded with musicians much younger than himself (he was born in 1951), and even with players outside jazz circles, such as Mark De Gli Antoni (from the New York band Soul Coughing).

Scofield still plays with Medeski Martin & Wood. He toured with them just last year, and says with assurance, "I will play with them again. They are like family."

It will be a different group with him this time in Prague, though he is no less enthusiastic about his sidemen. "There will be Bill Stewart. I've played with him for many years, and he's one of the greatest drummers around," Scofield says. "I'll also be with the bassist Ben Street, who's played with some great players like Lee Konitz and Paul Motian. Plus, on keyboards we'll have Mike Eckroth - he was a student of mine when I was teaching at New York University. I'm playing with him for the first time."

Stewart played a trio with Scofield and legendary bassist Steve Swallow for several years, and their recordings are also among the guitarist's best and favorites. As Scofield confides, "Trio with Bill Stewart and Steve Swallow has the best examples of me playing on my guitar."

Next up: something completely different.

"I have a new recording coming out in May," Scofield says. "It's with an orchestra from the Netherlands, The Metropole Orchestra, directed by Vince Mendoza. He's a good friend of mine and a great composer from L.A. That recording will have some of my tunes and a couple of Vince's, with his arrangements for the orchestra."

As for what to expect at Lucerna next week, Scofield says, "We'll be playing some of my older tunes, and newer ones that have never been recorded."

Whether the tunes are new or old, Scofield's sound is ultimately the key ingredient - often sharp and jagged, yet restrained, with roots in funk, rock and the blues. As Scofield explains, "In jazz, there is an orthodox sound, like Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall. But from my generation, we started incorporating rock and blues sounds in jazz. No one had done that before. Using different strings and distortion - they didn't do it, but for me it made perfect sense."

Scofield's singular sound has influenced contemporary players more than he is willing to admit. "Everybody has their own sound; you just have to find it," he says. "The great thing about jazz is that you can improvise and do your own thing until you find your own sound."

In any case, John Scofield is definitely looking forward to visiting Prague again. "The audience in Prague is always so great," he says. "Everyone seems to get into it, so we always look forward to playing at Lucerna. It's always the best audience on my tours in Europe."

Tony Ozuna can be reached at
features@praguepost.com