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Boston debut album mit12/5/2023 The pace picks up in tracks like ‘Elder Dance’, an off-kilter blues, where Scofield pulls off dazzling runs without breaking a sweat. First up is the languid ‘Coral’, based on a composition by the pianist Keith Jarrett, and the album as a whole has the feel of Jarrett's 1999 solo recording, ‘The Melody at Night, with You’: an old master settles down and tries out a few ideas. Instead, we get a distillation of Scofield's influences – and a mood. What happens when he's left to his own devices? Well, it's fair to say that admirers won't learn much they don't already know. Over the years, Scofield has turned his hand to most things, from funk to free jazz. Toutes ces splendides mélodies sont passionnément interprétées par un musicien au sommet de son art. Pour terminer cette promenade dans son jardin secret, Scofield creuse profondément la magnifique chanson country de Hank Williams, ‘You Win Again’. Sa version du standard ‘It Could Happen To You’ est gorgée de swing. Il improvise avec grâce sur ‘Coral’, composition de Keith Jarrett L’original ‘Honest I Do’ nous transporte tout en fluidité, en 1991, au temps d’une association guitaristique féconde avec Bill Frisell. Ce sage de la six cordes, toujours très vert, nous fait voyager, à travers treize pieces, dans toutes les musiques avec lesquelles il a grandi et vécu. Tel un contour assis au coin du feu, Maître ‘Sco’ fait chanter sa fidèle guitar Ibanez simplement accompagnée par une discrete machine à boucles. John Scofield a enfin enregistré son tout premier album solo, nous permettant ainsi de pénétrer dans son intimité peuplée de merveilleux souvenirs et de fantômes bienveillants. Scofield in a musical way shows that it is possible to find resolution. We live in societies with sections drifting apart. It is to Scofield’s credit that he convincingly brings the various trends together. The gap of sensibilities between ‘There Will never Be Another You’ and ‘Junco Partner’ seems unbridgeable. It is Scofield’s achievement to have created a bridge between musical cultures. At one time the gap between the music of Hank Williams seemed light years aways from Charlie Parker. These days Scofield might look like a nineteenth century lawyer in a Californian gold rush town but the album unites disparate parts of American cultural life. Staccato notes are also a feature of ‘Elder Dance’. The speed is increased, the relationship with the loop is strained and there are more staccato notes and a strange fade out with a return to finish the piece. ‘Trance Du Jour’ was inspired by John Coltrane. ‘Since You Asked’ was originally recorded with Joe Lovano in 1991. ‘Mrs Scofield’s Waltz’ is dedicated to his wife and business partner. Scofield as composer is featured with material from across the years. In short, this is a recital that is rich, inventive, absorbing and fully representative of a great guitar master at the height of his powers. John doesn’t reach for his music any longer but instead lets it come to him, so the deceptively casual air that informs tracks like ‘Honest I Do,’ mirroring the inviting tranquility of the album cover graphics, is exactly the quality that renders this record so accessible. While that approach seems a natural progression in Scofield’s evolution as an instrumentalist, composer, and recording artist, the ease with which the man plays never subsides. As he picks and strums so distinctively, there arises a quietude that places this record squarely in the ECM oeuvre that producer Manfred Eicher established over a half-century ago, an atmosphere that prevails even at those times the venerable guitarist utilizes looping: recording and mastering by Tyler Semiarid and Christoph Stickel, respectively, reveals the delicate layers of sound that create the illusion the man’s accompanying himself. Then there are the familiar likes of ‘Danny Boy,’ a bonafide standard that sounds utterly fresh tendered through Scofield’s pliant fingerwork. Interpreting songs by Buddy Holly (‘Not Fade Away’), Keith Jarrett (‘Coral’), and Hank Williams (‘You Win Again’), John demonstrates the uncommon dexterity whereby he can evoke, in turn, the sensations of revelry, dignity, and humility. But his second outing for ECM Records is the optimum opportunity for such a trek These baker’s dozen selections run the gamut of the eclecticism Scofield has displayed in leading his own projects and in collaborating with others over the years. John Scofield has gone in many different directions during the course of his storied fifty-year-plus career, but one route he’s never taken is the one leading to the recording of a true solo guitar album.
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