Given that John Scofield’s distinctive guitar style is a perfect cross between the staccato of vintage electric blues and the fluidity of classic jazz guitar, it’s little wonder he so effortlessly traverses as broad a musical expanse. His eclectic approach compels asking whether there’s a more adventurous contemporary jazz guitarist?
Just scan the projects the man’s embarked upon in recent years. So far only a road project, The Hollowbody Band positions Sco and kindred spirits exploring the realm of traditional jazz guitaring. Piety Street found the guitarist/composer/bandleader delving deeply down to the roots of contemporary gospel, while on This Meets That, a compact horn section complements his own instrument. On Trio Beyond he engaged in some wild fusion music with drummer Jack DeJohnette and long-time keyboard compatriot Larry Goldings, the counterpoint of which, A Moment’s Peace, found Scofield, Goldings and likeminded partners playing ballads with a comparably dexterous feather-light touch.
And these recordings and tours don’t take into account John Scofield’s abiding relationship with Medeski Martin & Wood, with whom he regularly (if somewhat sporadically) appears on stage and in recording studios. Or the mutually gratifying kinship Scofield maintains with Grateful Dead/Furthur bassist Phil Lesh. And then, as now, there is The Uberjam Band, a reliable and longstanding source of joyous grooves that belies the studied approach of the wizened musician whose resume includes stints with Mahavishnu drummer Billy Cobham and one of jazz music’s larger-than-life icons, Miles Davis.
As in the following conversation with Doug Collette, Scofield is invariably open-minded, good-natured, self-effacing and to the point. Uberjam Deux marks the ten-year reunion of that lineup and its release plus the extended touring in its support coincides with more MSMW activity as well as the guitarist’s summer appearances with the current Phil & Friends, about all of which John expresses a joyful enthusiasm that is at once refreshing and infectious—like the music he makes in whatever form it takes.
I’m impressed with how good the new album sounds, so I’m anxious to hear a little more about how the regrouping of The Uberjam Band came to be as well as how the recording evolved.
I thought it was time to do something with those guys again. I just felt like playing some electric type jazz again and working on some music with samples and playing with those guys. I just called everybody and said “Hey Let’s do it!” And they all were up for it.
That was pretty much it. That was last year and what ended up happening was that Avi (Bortnick, guitar and samples) and I worked on a bunch of tunes. Six of the tunes are co-written by Avi and me.
I noticed that looking at the info about the album.
So that was the first thing we had to do: work on some music. When we did the other records (Uberjam, Up All Night), the tunes came out of jam sessions on soundchecks. Back then I had recorded the CD Bump, which was not recorded with those guys and then I put a band together with guitar bass and drums and looking for a guitar player, that’s when I met Avi and he started doing samples and stuff. Then we met (drummer) Adam Deitch and we first got Jesse Murphy on bass and that band evolved and Uberjam came out of a year of touring and working on the tunes, really coming out of jam sessions; I would record the soundchecks where we would start up vamps, then write stuff around it.
This (project) was a little different because we didn’t have any gigs. Avi had a bunch of demos of his music that he had done over the last few years and he had made demos with all his sample and guitar—some of it had live bass and drums, but most of it was home stuff with samples. He had all kinds of tunes, about thirty, so I went through those and found some stuff that I liked and he was nice enough to let me add my own stuff and rewrite his stuff. That was different for me because I haven’t done that sort of thing before.
That is quite a different approach to collaborating. If you’re in sync with a guy to begin with though it’s just a different way of collaborating, right?
Exactly. And then we put my thing in there and then the tunes were about 50/50 with my stuff and his. It was sort of fun and it worked because his tracks already existed and in some cases I put in little parts, bridges of songs, that I had floating around already too.
That must’ve been fascinating to do that: to see how stuff you had done, wholly independently of what Avi had done, fit together.
Yeah! And you gotta find the right way to write: you can’t just jam anything together, but the stuff that we jammed together worked.
So when those two steps were done, what did you do?
So then I said, “These are going to be the tunes.” Avi and I went over them first, I changed some stuff around then we got together with Andy Hess; I knew that Adam couldn’t do a lot of the tour dates…
Yeah he’s a busy man…
Right, so I used that time to try out different drummers to rehearse the tunes: we ended up using Louis Cato who’s on three or four of the tracks and we played the rest with Adam. We just went in and did it!
So when you all got together, with Adam or Louis, did it all fall right into place, where everything clicked?
It did fall right into place. We were all psyched to do it. And with Adam, we had one rehearsal before we went into the studio and that was definitely old home week (laughs). Just absolutely felt perfect. Then we went into the studio and did those tunes.
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Did you have any trepidation whatsoever that you guys wouldn’t click. I don’t know if that’s a fair question, but I wondered if any such thought came to mind…
Yeah…we rehearsed for a month together before we made the record because everybody was flying around and doing different gigs and all, so it was hard to pull everybody. But when we did I said, “No, this is such a blast.”
I think we’ve all changed and grown (I hope). but we’re all still the same people too.
Well right, it’s going to be fascinating to watch you guys work when you play because I remember seeing the band in the past, on your own, opening for Medeski Martin & Wood (with whom you sat in) and it was even more intriguing because I had seen Andy Hess play earlier that year with Gov’t Mule… then he was with you.
I’ve probably got recordings of those shows that the soundman did for me; I’ve got probably thousands of cd’s that are just rotting in my basement (laughs)…of good gigs.
Looking at the Uberjam Deux credits right now as we speak, I was not surprised to see (keyboardist) John Medeski as a special guest.
That’s right! He came and played taking very much a background role: he was very nice. Some of the tunes I thought really needed keyboards and he did that.
How did he come to be involved? Did you call him and say, “I need some keyboards?”
He’s my buddy. I still play with him in MSMW and I said “Hey man…will you do this for me?” I called him on the phone and said “Please…” And he said yes (laughs)…
Did he play live?
No, he did overdubs.
It’s interesting you make that remark about him. As I was thinking about the regrouping of this band, looking at the last album you did of ballads (A Moment’s Peace) with (keyboardist) Larry Goldings, and you’re going to play with Phil Lesh early this summer, and MMW, it’s great to have these longstanding abiding relationships with these guys… It must be terrific…
Absolutely. With some people we don’t play for a few years, yet it’s still there when you’ve forged a sound together. With Larry I did the record and that was a one shot a couple years ago, but I just did a month of touring with him in Europe in a trio with Greg Hutchinson (formerly of Joshua Redman’s quartet) on drums. We made the record, but we hadn’t played very much over the last few years, so it was great to get back with him. Same with Medeski and Martin and Wood: we did Jam Cruise last year, we did a few concerts…we’re looking at 2014 and doing another record and some touring; at this point, all we know is we’ve said “Let’s make it all Brazilian music.”
Longstanding friendships with musicians must be like nothing else…
Those are my best friends. The guys I’ve played with over the years—and some of them going back to my twenties, like Adam Nussbaum the drummer—we stay in touch and Joe Lovano, the saxophonist—all the guys who played in Miles’ (Davis) band. And certainly all the guys who’ve been in my bands—(drummer) Bill Stewart, (bassist) Steve Swallow, my original mentor who I met in the Seventies. You know when you’re on the road with guys playing night after night, you really get close in a way: it might be like being in the Army. My dad’s generation, guys who had their jobs and their families, but they remember their Army buddies from World War II because they were together. It’s like that being in a band: you work together.
It’s like a mobile clinic if you’re on the road playing every night and you’re traveling together, what else is on your mind except music all the time?
That ‘s right. It really does bond you and I feel lucky that I’ve got to hang with all these great players.
I’m sure they feel the same way about you. They must if they come back playing and recording with you.
They’d better (laughs)
It must be a very mutually nurturing relationship.
And then there’s another guy I hadn’t played with in years— (guitarist) Mike Stern who was in Miles’ band back in 1983, but before that we had played together in New York City before we went with Miles—and we haven’t played since then, like 1985 and that was fun; we played a bunch of gigs last month.
How did that come about?
I have this other project that I do with a bunch of music that I wrote called ‘The Hollowbody Band’ and it’s straight-ahead jazz stuff written for two guitars. I had done it with Kurt Rosenwinkel last year and I had a bunch of gigs I was doing to do with him, but then he got the Crossroads (Festival) gig with (Eric) Clapton: EC called him up to be the jazz guy at the festival and so Kurt couldn’t do my tour: even though Crossroads was just one weekend, Clapton wanted him to rehearse and put it all together, so he had to bow out of my thing, but I got Mike to do it and that was great because I had been wanting to play with Mike for awhile.
I guess it’s hard to say no to Eric Clapton, but…
It’s a huge thing for Kurt to get to do that. How often do jazz guitarists get to play Madison Square Garden?
Absolutely. Great exposure as well to an audience the likes of which he would not have otherwise reached.
Though I heard from friends of mine who were there that when he played, along with Allan Holdsworth, a lot of people talked through it.
That can be the case at any show where the audience isn’t familiar with the musicians or the music. Where did you record Uberjam Deux?
We did it at Sear Sound on 46th Street in New York. Great studio: Walter Sear is deceased, but he was known for collecting great analog mikes and there’s a great new board and a great sounding room. The real secret ingredient for the new record though is the engineer James Farber….
I was going to ask, having jumped to the conclusion that you and the band produced the album yourself…
Yeah, I produced it in that we just went in and played like we do. Except for Medeski who overdubbed, we played in real time. We fixed little parts and we spliced takes together and all, but mainly we didn’t do the solos later or any of that stuff. Then it was really James who took care of the sonic end of this. And that’s been my experience that in making all these records when you get a great engineer likes James—two engineers, James and Joe Ferla, have recorded all of my records…
Both of those names are very familiar…
They’re great jazz engineers, for a lack of a better term, but they’ve also done a lot of electric guitar and electric bands too and so I really leave it to those guys sonically. We went in and played and its really important to have the setup be comfortable in the room, so visually you can see everybody, but you can also hear: James is very aware of getting setup like that as that’s very important. And then James pretty much just does the sound: I will occasionally say “You can turn that up or adjust that down…’” whatever—and he does. But it’s pretty much his vision sonically. It’s a very natural thing: he just captures us playing.
One thing that really impressed me listening to the album is that the tracks are really sequenced well.
Well, thank you. That took a long time (laughs).
I can imagine a lot of thought went into it because although it’s in a groove right away, there’s logic to the album in that there’s a beginning, middle and an end. And the way the grooves are mixed contrast with each other.
That’s really important! I wish I could compose with the sequence in mind. I’m not quite there yet: somebody like Beethoven: I wonder if they really thought of thirty-five minutes of music and the ups and downs of that or if they were just putting pieces together and elaborating on them. For me, I do think of it like “Oh wait a minute: we can’t have anything that’s the same.” That’s sort of my rule: all the songs have to be somewhat different. Because I’ve had it in the past where we’ve had two tracks that were really good, but they were really similar and I thought: “We need to put them in different places on the cd…” So then it becomes “Oh more of that!?” …No matter how good it is…so the tunes were pretty much different from each other. There’s enough similarity in that my guitar’s in there, but the grooves have to be different…
But then putting them in sequence: I had a whole other sequence, but my wife Susan listened to that; I was so close to it because you know we recorded it and then we had to mix and master in three weeks from the last day of recording which is not that long to remove myself from it and think of a sequence. I played it for Susan and she said “Wait a minute…that’s just not working, let’s try something else…” and she actually really helped me with the sequence.
That’s great to have a disinterested ear to listen that has a certain objectivity that you can’t have after a while.
There’s a thing about being fresh you know? And where you haven’t heard something over an over again. The initial reaction is really something and I believe in that. I’ll tell you the truth: after I’ve heard something a certain number of times, I don’t hear it anymore. After you’ve really labored on something you can’t see or hear it. You already know what’s there! And once my mind starts filling in the notes—like I know what’s coming up—it’s not that I can’t hear it, but I’m not a good judge of it. I can’t put it in a sequence or tell if it’s good or bad. I have to really step back from it and that really takes months of other music going into your mind so you can look at it clearly. And we didn’t have time for that. We had to put the sequence together right after.
Did you feel pressured?
Well, yeah! When somebody’s scheduling things, it’s one thing to get everybody in the same room to record. So you finally get that—the rehearsals and recordings to make the record—then you have a mastering date when it has to be done so they can release it. That’s why we had to master in January for a release date of May. And now, of course, it’s not coming out in May: the release date isn’t till July.
Yeah, I saw that. By the same token though, the atmosphere of that record is the middle of summer: blue skies, warm breeze and ocean, cold drinks and dancing…
There ya go! I’m up for that!
You are putting it out at the right time and touring behind it at the right time, that’s for sure.
And hopefully we’ll be around when the weather turns cold too.
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