Word: scofield
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While his accompanying trio differs entirely from the recording sidemen, Scofield has assembled a dazzling array of supremely talented, if currently little known musicians who more than live up to his title of “the real drea band.” While the standout by far was drummer Bill Stewart, who matched Scofield’s intensity and complexity with dizzying dexterity and frenetic zeal, tenor player Seamus Blake and acoustic bassist Jesse Murphy also acquitted themselves admirably. Blake furnished lean and frequently blistering solos, with Murphy impelling forward the night’s proceedings with tight grooves...
Instead of settling into the dirty mellow grooves that have marked his last three albums, Scofield launched into a steely edged and slightly jarring bop sound with “Do I Crazy?” from Works for Me. After brushing off the cobwebs collected from a few days on the road, Scofield stuck into the unsettling syncopated rhythms, weaving shattering dissonant chords into elaborate finger runs as he revelled in conjuring the glory days of jazz when bop was a budding musical form...
...most of the evening, bathed in blue light, hunched over his guitar and pacing up and down in the Regattabar’s intimate surroundings, Scofield called upon a bewildering stylistic arsenal. His soloing on the greasy, rolling “Chicken Dog” called upon jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery’s pioneering style as he conjured segments of thick parallel octaves. These soon gave way to electronic pedal antics from tone bending to evocations of Jimi Hendrix’s wa-wa guitar bending on his legendary “Voodoo Child...
Despite the far-reaching quotations in his work, it never seemed that Scofield was derivative or stretched for motivation. Grasped by the inspiration for a musical idea, he would push it to the limits of creative invention, feeding off his sidemen until grasped by a fresh concept that he would subsequently exhaust. Blake’s tenor provided particularly potent fuel, as they, face to face, improvised harmonies, some of which melded seamlessly with the tune. Others that didn’t quite work were nonetheless commendable for their innovation. Free to experiment beyond the confines of chords or melodic...
...While the former relieved tension by closing with mellow, mellifluous chords, “Mrs. Scofield’s Waltz”was rudely interrupted at the end by piercing dissonances, the heart-rending tribute rendered barren by coarse and interruptive cacophony. It merely serves to demonstrate how Scofield refused to let his audience become complacent with the music...