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Thread: AAJ Review: John Scofield, Country for Old Men

  1. #1

    AAJ Review: John Scofield, Country for Old Men



    My review of John Scofield's exceptional Country for Old Men, today at All About Jazz.

    Aside from the playing - with Sco, Larry Goldings, Steve Swallow & Bill Stewart, how can it be anything but exceptional? - this album, along with his previous Impulse! debut, Past Present, have taken a big leap forward sonically, and positively sing on my Tetra-based system. Definitely a great test disc if you're looking for new gear (and if you are, you ought to be considering Tetra, the most truthful speaker I've ever heard).

    Now, for the start of the review....

    When guitarist Bill Frisell first began a more decided focus on roots music, bluegrass and country & western music with the release of 1996's Nashville (Nonesuch), despite being largely very well-received, jazz purists rankled when the largely bluegrass/folk-informed album began to garner awards like Downbeat Magazine's Best Jazz Album of the Year. While Frisell's oftentimes Americana-tinged work has, in the ensuing years, become more fully accepted for the wonderful music that it is, fellow six-stringer John Scofield is unlikely to find himself the subject of such purist criticism with Country for Old Men. A play on the Coen Brothers' acclaimed 2007 film No Country for Old Men, a reference to the vast majority of source material on Scofield's first album of entirely non-original music since 2005's That's What I Say: John Scofield Plays The Music Of Ray Charles (Verve), and a not-so-subtle reminder that the 64 year-old guitarist isn't getting any younger, Country for Old Men may demonstrate his clear love of music from songwriters including George Jones, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and Bob Wills, but it is still unequivocally a jazz record...one that may have a touch of twang but also swings mightily on nearly half of its twelve songs.

    Scofield may be approaching the midpoint of his seventh decade on earth, but maintains an active touring schedule and a pretty reasonable certainty that fans can expect at least one new album every year. Still, beyond culling its material from genre that many jazz fans hate with a vengeance, that the guitarist is releasing another jazz album back-to-back with the 2016 Grammy Award-winning reunion with saxophonist Joe Lovano on his superb Impulse! Records debut, Past Present (2015)--which turned into one of the 2016 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival's most memorable performances. It breaks a long streak of alternating between jam band records like 2013's Überjam Deux (EmArcy, 2013) and concept albums like his Ray Charles tribute and the blues/New Orleans-informed Piety Street (EmArcy, 2009), with more decidedly jazz-oriented albums including his collaboration with composer/arranger Vince Mendoza and the Metropole Orkest, 54 (EmArcy, 2010) and smaller but no-less ambitious albums like the particularly exceptional This Meets That (EmArcy, 2007) and EnRoute (Verve, 2004).

    Still, at this point in his life and career, Scofield can pretty much do as he pleases and, not unlike This Meets That--which shares the same longstanding trio of longtime bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart but is, this time, fleshed out to a quartet with the addition of another evergreen musical compatriot, keyboardist Larry Goldings--what makes Country for Old Men such a captivating listen is that it brings together many of the guitarist's core loves: the blues (which has always been a part of his DNA in any context, with his thick, gritty tone and distinctive bends); singer/songwriters like James Taylor, whose "Bartender Blues," first heard on 1977's JT (Columbia), is given a gently balladic treatment; traditional folk music like "Wayfaring Stranger," which is delivered New Orleans style, with Stewart's near-Second Line support; and, of course, plenty of bop-informed jazz, in particular Sco's ability to build relentless tension and release by moving harmonically "outside," only to bring things back "inside" with the unerring jazz equivalent of a great comedian's perfect timing.

    Continue reading here...

  2. #2
    Member Dok's Avatar
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    Great review John! Makes me want to buy the album. I've not kept up with Scobro's last couple. And, I don't know how you keep up with all the history of the individual players!
    Last edited by Dok; 09-25-2016 at 01:25 PM.

  3. #3
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    I have dipped my toes into Sco's career a half dozen times. Looks like it's time to do it again.

    Thanks

  4. #4
    All Things Must Pass spellbound's Avatar
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    Love the album title. Being a fan of Scofield, I will have to get this. Thanks for the review.
    We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
    It won't be visible through the air
    And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Dok View Post
    Great review John! Makes me want to buy the album. I've not kept up with Scobro's last couple. And, I don't know how you keep up with all the history of the individual players!
    Thanks for the kind words. To answer your question...it's easier than you might think.

    I'm pathological. Can forget what I need moving from one room to another, but music just seems to be easy to remember. That said, perhaps it's not pathology; maybe I'm a kind of idiot savant...emphasis, of course, on "idiot."

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    I have dipped my toes into Sco's career a half dozen times. Looks like it's time to do it again.

    Thanks
    Pleasure!

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by spellbound View Post
    Love the album title. Being a fan of Scofield, I will have to get this. Thanks for the review.
    Again: pleasure.

  8. #8
    Member nosebone's Avatar
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    Sco keep getting better and better, and thx for the review!
    no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by nosebone View Post
    Sco keep getting better and better, and thx for the review!
    You're very welcome....and I couldn't agree with you more.when I was travelinga lot 2008-14, I saw him many times, and he was always great...but this past summer, playing here with Lovano, Stewart and Ben Street...I can't recall ever hearing him play that well. And it was interesting: no effects, just one guitar, one very good quality cable and one amp. Straight signal, despite my love of processing, still trumps when it comes to the signature tone for which he's known.

  10. #10
    He seems to be playing a Tele quite a bit these days. I love that Uberjam Sarajevo show on YouTube. The young drummer Louis Cato is a badass! And I'm interested in any records with Bill Stewart, so I need to pick up the two latest CDs.

  11. #11
    Member nosebone's Avatar
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    He was great on a Tele last year with Scomule.
    no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Reid View Post
    He seems to be playing a Tele quite a bit these days. I love that Uberjam Sarajevo show on YouTube. The young drummer Louis Cato is a badass! And I'm interested in any records with Bill Stewart, so I need to pick up the two latest CDs.
    Yeah, he does sound great on Tele...and if his latest album leaned more faithfully towards country, it might have been the right axe for the gig. But it didn't and it's not.

    But he still sounds wonderful when he decides to use it.

  13. #13
    Sco - there's nobody else like him. Thanks for the review, buying now.
    And the code is a play, a play is a song, a song is a film, a film is a dance...

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Polypet View Post
    Sco - there's nobody else like him. Thanks for the review, buying now.
    Hope you've been enjoying it...!

  15. #15
    I picked up the new one, plus an old release entitled Bar Talk. Enjoying them both!

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Reid View Post
    I picked up the new one, plus an old release entitled Bar Talk. Enjoying them both!
    Great that they finally issued, albeit in Japan only I think, Bar Talk. It was the only Sco album I didn't have on CD, so was thrilled to see it out...it was an important transitional album for a relatively young Sco, and remains a personal fave.

  17. #17
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    I saw John Scofield at the concert earlier this month at Pančevački Jazz festival where he played those covers from his recent album.





    It was a beautiful night.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by jkelman View Post
    Hope you've been enjoying it...!
    Excellent record. I'm loving it, as usual with Sco
    And the code is a play, a play is a song, a song is a film, a film is a dance...

  19. #19
    Member progholio's Avatar
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    I love the title and everything i've heard so far from this record, the version of Jolene is worth the price of admission.

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