Scofield Bares His Soul at the Blue Note

Contemporary jazz guitar virtuoso John Scofield played the first night of a five-night residency at Greenwich Village’s legendary jazz haunt, Blue Note, on Tuesday. The shows, billed as The John Scofield Trio & the Scohorns, are Scofield’s last East Coast stops on his current tour, which is in support of the guitarist’s new album, This Meets That. After the Blue Note shows, Scofield (with his trio, but sans the Scohorns) will be off to Europe for a three-week tour. The new album, which is the first Scofield has recorded for Emarcy Records (after switching to the label from Verve), features a slew of Scofield originals, as well as a couple of covers thrown in for good measure.

The 56-year-old guitar master walked out at about 10:40 p.m., looking very academic in his jeans and untucked button-down gray shirt (which could at least partially be attributed to the fact that he is an adjunct jazz professor at NYU). Scofield and his band—which includes a flugelhorn player who sipped a glass of red wine throughout the course of the set—launched right into “Strangeness in the Night,” a new song off of This Meets That. During the song, Scofield took an extended guitar solo, displaying his musical virtuosity and whetting the audience’s collective appetite early on.

Next, the group transitioned seamlessly into an instrumental, jazz-infused version of the early ’60s Rolling Stones classic, “Satisfaction.” Scofield’s complex rendition of the simple, blues-based Stones tune lent the quintessential classic rock song a whole new level of musical depth. “That last tune is a thing I wrote,” he said after bringing the Jagger/Richards standard to a close, eliciting a bout of laughter from the audience. “What, you don’t believe me?” Scofield smiled jubilantly and joked throughout the course of the set. It certainly seemed as if he was genuinely happy to be there.

Scofield has played with everyone from Miles Davis to Phil Lesh, but he seems to be most comfortable when playing his own material. During Tuesday night’s 10:30 p.m. late set, he was able to do just that, as the material was culled primarily from his new album. During “Trio Blues,” Scofield gave each member of the band the opportunity to solo. This gave the audience a chance to truly comprehend the level of musical prowess that was on stage; even Scofield stopped everything and intently watched the drum solo (during which the drummer accidentally flung one of his drumsticks into the crowd).

Scofield proved on Tuesday that he is musically versatile. Not only did the guitarist cover the genres of jazz and blues, but he also branched out into country, with a cover of Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors,” and psychedelic music with a new song, “Pretty Out.” “That’s the spacey, experimental one,” Scofield said of the song after the show.

Toward the end of the set, Scofield joked with the crowd by saying: “If you want to hear the new record, you can download it off someone else’s computer. Or if you want to buy the album, you can get it at a record store. I hear there’s still one in New Jersey.” Although the guitarist was taking a humorous approach to the current state of the music industry, his comments were quite poignant and seemed to resonate with the music-loving audience.

It has been said that if blues is the more emotional, visceral genre, then jazz is the more methodical, intellectual style of music. But Scofield proved that statement to be blatantly false on Tuesday night. His facial expressions during his solos alone were worth the price of admission. Everyone in the room (if not in the entire West Village) knew that he was truly feeling what he was playing. After the show, Scofield imparted some valuable advice about what it takes to reach his level of musical virtuosity. “Practice and listen,” Scofield told the Spectator didactically. “Good things take time.”