Rating: NNN
Sticking with the same players (bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart) who backed him on 96’s Quiet and nearly a decade later on EnRoute, jazz guitar master John Scofield re-examines certain aspects of his career on this debut for the Emarcy imprint.
Compositions like Strangeness In The Night look back to Scofield’s 90s-era small combo jazz, accentuated by horn sections, a four-piece in this instance. The brassy chamber intro makes you think you have the track pegged, but at the two-minute mark Scofield reins in the horns, then drives his combo uptempo into a quickly paced jam.
Scofield covers of two songs he learned to play guitar on, House Of The Rising Sun and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. His meticulously retooled interpretations make the case that jazz covers of rock classics need not always be catastrophic.
