Uncle John’s Band (ECM)
John Scofield
Released October 13, 2023
DownBeat Readers Poll Top 11 Jazz Albums of the Year 2024
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nvW3wouUmmLvsRdRyinxhMEa1WGR5NyQA
Spotify:
About:
Named for the Grateful Dead song that concludes this double album, Uncle John’s Band features masterful guitarist John Scofield at his most freewheeling. Wide ranging repertoire finds his trio with Vicente Archer and Bill Stewart tackling material from Dylan’s “Mr Tambourine Man” to Neil Young’s “Old Man”, from Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere” to the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool classic “Budo”. And jazz standards including “Stairway to the Stars” and “Ray’s Idea” rub shoulders with seven far-reaching Scofield originals that are variously swing, funk and folk-inflected. The red thread through the programme is the trio’s improvisational verve. “I feel like we can go anywhere” says John Scofield of the group’s multi-directional versatility, and they do. The opening “Tambourine Man” for instance begins almost in the spirit of raga, before the theme emerges, lilting and country-flavoured, and the improvisation opens up a new space where “we don’t follow a form but play freely,” with Vicente Archer’s heartfelt solo an early highlight. From moment to moment the group embraces the structures of the pieces it plays, then stretches and liberates them. “All the compositions are vehicles for us to improvise on,” Scofield told rock magazine Relix recently. “All are equally important to me.”
If Scofield is first and foremost a great jazz guitarist – a status confirmed by a biography that has included celebrated work with masters including Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Gary Burton, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Henderson and more, as well as the many outstanding groups that he has led – he has always been an open-minded player. Rock and blues were his original starting points as a teenaged guitarist, and the quality of direct emotional expression associated with those idioms has remained an unmistakable part of his sound, however sophisticated the harmonic context. In parallel to his jazz activities, he has long been welcomed as a distinguished guest on the rock jam band scene and, as a contributor to Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh’s groups, has played “Uncle John’s Band” live on multiple occasion over the last 20 years.
Uncle John’s Band is Scofield’s third album as a leader on ECM: it follows Swallow Tales (recorded 2019), dedicated to the music of frequent partner Steve Swallow, and the solo album John Scofield, recorded in the isolation of lockdown in 2021. Other appearances on ECM include Bass Desires (1985) and Second Sight (1987), with bassist Marc Johnson’s group whose frontline paired Scofield with Bill Frisell. Saudades (2004), a celebration of the music of Tony Williams Lifetime, featured Scofield with Jack DeJohnette and Larry Goldings.
Bassist Vicente Archer is widely considered one of today’s profound voices on the bass. He has been playing in a variety of Scofield led bands since 2017 as well as with Kenny Garrett, Terence Blanchard, Tom Harrell, Freddie Hubbard, Louis Hayes, Curtis Fuller, Mark Whitfield, Roy Haynes, Geri Allen, Stanley Jordan, Wycliffe Gordon, Stefon Harris, Janis Siegel, Robert Glasper, Nicholas Payton and The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. In 2023, after many years of creative contribution to other musicians’ concepts, Archer released his first album as a leader, Short Stories (Cellar Music) with Bill Stewart and Gerald Clayton in 2023. Uncle John’s Band marks his first appearance on ECM. Drummer Bill Stewart has performed and recorded with many leading musicians, including Joe Lovano, Pat Metheny, Maceo Parker, Larry Goldings, Charlie Haden, Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Lee Konitz, Nicholas Payton and others. He co-leads the popular group Goldings/Stewart/Bernstein, and has been associated with John Scofield for more than 30 years. “What Bill does is more than ‘playing the drums,’” Scofield has said. “He’s a melodic voice in the music, playing counterpoint, and comping, while also swinging really hard.” This is evident throughout the new album, not least on Scofield’s “How Deep”, which lifts the 32 bar jazz form to new heights…
Track Listing:
CD 1
1. Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan) 09:05
2. How Deep (John Scofield) 05:39
3. TV Band (John Scofield) 07:22
4. Back In Time (John Scofield) 06:49
5. Budo (Bud Powell, Miles Davis) 04:12
6. Nothing Is Forever (John Scofield) 06:40
7.Old Man (Neil Young) 07:02
CD 2
1. The Girlfriend Cord (John Scofield) 05:22
2. Stairway To The Stars (Frank Signorelli, Matt Malneck, Mitchell Parish) 06:42
3. Mo Green (John Scofield) 07:19
4. Mask (John Scofield) 06:34
5. Somewhere (Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim) 06:32
6. Ray’s Idea (Gil Fuller, Raymond Brown) 03:56
7. Uncle John’s Band (Jerome Garcia, Robert Hunter) 06:27
Personnel:
John Scofield: guitar
Vicente Archer: double bass
Bill Stewart: drums
Recorded August 2022, at Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, New York, by Tyler McDiarmid
Cover Photo: Max Franosch
Design: Sascha Kleis
Executive-Producer: Manfred Eicher
Review:
John Scofield’s entire oeuvre can be roughly divided into groove-based or straight-ahead recordings. Yet even in maximum groove propulsion, as on A Go Go (Verve, 1998), to cite one stellar example, Scofield’s grounding in straight-ahead jazz is never far from the surface. On the flip side, his most conventional jazz is always rhythmically vital. Uncle John’s Band, the guitarist’s third ECM album as leader, following Swallow Tales (2020) and John Scofield (2022), falls squarely in the latter category. And it is a gem.
Though this double album features seven Scofield originals and seven covers, it is no roots-and-branches concept album. Far from it. In Scofield’s hands the bridges between ’40s bebop and contemporary improvisation or between ’60s folk and wicked groove-based romps are smooth, aided in no small measure by the agility and verve of drummer Bill Stewart and bassist Vicente Archer. Few know Scofield’s playing as well as Stewart, an on-off collaborator since the early 1990s. With Archer, the pair have been Scofield’s go-to guys since Combo 66 (Verve, 2016). Not for nothing does this sound like a road-seasoned band of brothers.
Of the covers, Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Neil Young’s “Old Man” and Grateful Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band” provide the juiciest bones for fresh-sounding collective improvisation, so far removed are they, at least rhythmically, from the jazz tradition. Loops course through the Dylan classic like a tanpura drone and a quasi-Indian, note-bending quality is just one of the colors that filters through in Scofield’s soloing.
The bebop staple “Budo”—Miles Davis’ contrafact of Bud Powell’s “Hallucinations —and the leader’s own “How Deep” both follow a walking-bass pattern. The trio’s momentum feels more programmatic on these stylized pieces, although there is no denying the fire in the collective playing. Scofield is in mesmerizing form throughout, combining gutsy passion and stylish savoir faire. Stewart and Archer also weave the sort of rhythmic magic which could work as a stand-alone soundtrack.
The trio’s broiling interplay is arguably at its keenest on Scofield’s originals, with the swinging “TV Band,” the folksy “Back in Time” (with its echoes of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”) and the irresistible, funk-laced “Mo Green” being standouts. But amidst all the bustle and flexing, “Stairway to the Stars” and “Somewhere” lend quietly beguiling credence to the rarely voiced notion that Scofield is as good a balladeer as any out there.
In a 2020 interview with All About Jazz Scofield pondered the jazz dichotomy: “Jazz is best when its completely carefree. The only problem is when you care about the music more than anything in the world, how do you get carefree?” Intuitively, Scofield knows how and has done for years. Uncle John’s Band proves that in spades.
Ian Patterson (All About Jazz)
