John Scofield En Route CD

Live @ The Blue Note,Nyc 12/03 W/Steve Swallow & Bill Stewart

John Scofield Trio: John Scofield (guitar); Steve Swallow (bass); Bill Stewart (drums).
Recorded at The Blue Note, New York, New York in December 2003.
Following a series of coruscating servings of progressive uber funk for Verve, Scofield stripped down to a trio for this live session at New York's Blue Note club in December 2003. He hooked up with a pair of old friends, the terrific loose-limbed drummer Bill Stewart, and the tense, nimble bassist Steve Swallow, and the three go after each other in some often-furiously busy, driving, tangled interplay, defying the frigid New York weather of that period. Denzil Best's "Wee" gets a scorching, asymmetrical workout to start, and Swallow's "Name That Tune" promptly goes into super overdrive, with Scofield darting all over the place in his idiosyncratic way. "Hammock Soliloquy" varies between another of Scofield's irresistible, laid-back, country tunes and more combustible high-speed interplay, while "Bag" ain't nothin' but the blues with a volatile groove. A highly-convoluted trip through "It Is Written" precedes -- and partially pre-echoes -- a quiet ballad-tempo rendition of the Bacharach/David tune "Alfie." The closest thing to the jazz/funk jams of Scofield's recent past is an 11-minute closing workout called "Over Big Top" -- a paraphrase of "Bigtop" from his Groove Elation album -- churning and driving relentlessly. Leaning more toward Scofield's jazz side per se, this high-energy outing should pass the time quite agreeably until he unleashes another of his jazz/funk groove-a-thons. ~ Richard S. Ginell
EN ROUTE captures guitarist John Scofield performing in a trio setting at the Blue Note in New York City. Given the group format and the venue, it's not surprising that EN ROUTE reveals the more jazz-oriented side of Scofield's aesthetic than the punchy funk workouts he turned out in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Scofield's energetic playing has rarely sounded better than in the illustrious company of bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart, however, and the result is a solid, complex, and thoroughly enjoyable study in dynamic group interplay.
The program consists mostly of tunes written by Scofield, with Swallow's frantic, bop-styled "Name That Tune" and a lush cover of Burt Bacharach/Hal David's "Alfie" thrown in for good measure. Stewart's quick-wristed drumming style, which sometimes makes him sound like several percussionists at once, creates a dense, polyrhythmic backdrop to Swallow's furious, agile lines and Scofield's fleet-fingered leads. There are touches of soul-jazz ("Wee"), bluesy swing ("Bag"), and laid-back funk ("Over Big Top"), but the true order of the day is dense, nervous post-bop. The synthesis of modes and the extraordinary chemistry of the trio make this one of Scofield's most satisfying straightforward-jazz efforts.JazzTimes (pp.107-8) - "[T]hey're consistently engaging....The album packs a punch that only three well-acquainted players can deliver."