John Scofield Combo 66 at 12on14 Club

Innovative guitarist, visionary band leader, and singular composer John Scofield has been on a serious roll, of late. Sco’s 2015 release, Past Present, earned the New York native not one but two Grammy Awards, for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. Scofield followed Past Present with the eclectic Country For Old Men, the Grammy gods granting him the gilded gramophone trophies for Best Jazz Instrumental Album of 2016, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo (“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”).

As driven as he is fun loving, in 2017 Scofield joined forces with old pals Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier and John Medeski for the rural New York jazz band of the ages, Hudson, the quartet romping the world from Boise to Berlin and back again....

read more

Innovative guitarist, visionary band leader, and singular composer John Scofield has been on a serious roll, of late. Sco’s 2015 release, Past Present, earned the New York native not one but two Grammy Awards, for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. Scofield followed Past Present with the eclectic Country For Old Men, the Grammy gods granting him the gilded gramophone trophies for Best Jazz Instrumental Album of 2016, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo (“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”).

As driven as he is fun loving, in 2017 Scofield joined forces with old pals Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier and John Medeski for the rural New York jazz band of the ages, Hudson, the quartet romping the world from Boise to Berlin and back again.

John Scofield keeps his talent and his trusty Ibanez AS200 guitar burning brightly on Combo 66 (Verve), which finds our man with a new quartet and fresh compositions celebrating what else? Scofield’s 66th birthday!

“I wrote all new tunes for this record, Combo 66,” Scofield notes from where else, the road. “I called it that because—I’m 66! And 66 is the coolest jazz number you can get because if you hit 66 you’re doing ok. Remember all the great records from the 60s? Brasil 66. ‘Route 66.’ It hit me that it would be poetic to use that title.”

Combo 66 swings effortlessly to the condor-like rhythms of drummer Bill Stewart, Scofield’s percussionist of choice since 1992s What We Do. When it came to bass rhapsodies, Sco chose upright bassist Vincente Archer of Robert Glasper’s Trio. And for the first-ever keyboard chair in his acoustic quartet, Scofield called upon 34-year-old organist/pianist Gerald Clayton, son of bassist John Clayton of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra.

show less