Track Listing

1. Wee
2. Toogs
3. Name That Tune
4. Hammock Soliloquy
5. Bag
6. It Is Written
7. Alfie
8. Travel John
9. Over Big Top

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125555 in Music
• Released on: 2004-05-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

Amazon.com
With the live EnRoute, recorded at New York's Blue Note, guitarist John Scofield returns from the jam-band wars in challenging high style, leading a trio for the first time on record in more than 20 years. With his strong blues and funk sensibility, Scofield has always been the jazz guitarist most likely to succeed among rock listeners, and fans from both camps will be drawn to this purer improvisational enterprise. Teamed here with longtime drumming associate Bill Stewart and veteran bassist Steve Swallow (who was featured on those early-'80s trio albums), he's still jamming, but there's a sharpness of focus and a locked-in intensity among the musicians that you rarely encounter in jam-band settings--including his own. Emptying out his bag of much-imitated tricks--the sighing pedal tones, slab-like chords, shimmering lyrical lines, and controlled screams--Scofield romps through the bop classic, "Wee," and delivers a diaphanous reading of "Alfie." The album also features a pair of remakes: "Name That Tune," Swallow's bounding remake of Duke Ellington's "Perdido," and the leader's strutting "Over Big Top," based on "Bigtop" from his 1995 album, Groove Elation. From whatever perspective you choose, it's Scofield's best album since Time on My Hands, his 1990 quartet date with saxist Joe Lovano. --Lloyd Sachs

Customer Reviews

Mr. Scofield at his best, and in good company
This is pure, brilliant jazz: live improvization by three virtuosi. Mr. Scofield puts aside his funk-rap experimentation (what a relief) and just swings hard and deep--and in very good company.

Scofield's phrasing, tone, and attack are unique, making him recongizable instantly. He makes every note count, never revelling in speed for speed's sake. I have never heard him play any better.

Steve Swallow might be called the Bill Evans of jazz bass guitar. He gently supports the group in a deeply melodic, gentle (and often tender) manner--swinging all the while. That may sound like a strange description for a bass player, but it all works perfectly.

Bill Stewart has a telepathic connection with Scofield, as he did with Pat Metheny in the lastest incarnation of The Pat Metheny Trio. (Those recordings are highly recommended.) The interplay with Scofield is uncanny and aggressive, yet the beat never fades. Steward has amazing capacities dynamically (those quick swells on the snare are most pleasing) and a displays a very active left hand. He, too, is in a class by himself. He takes chances and comes out on top: never safe, but always good.

This is hearty music. Savor it, and be thankful for these gentleman's musical endowments and their collective chemistry--or should I say alchemy?

Douglas Groothuis

Dancing the tightrope
Jazz is a high wire act.

Especially live. As here.

No net beneath. If you slip, you go splat.

These guys don't go splat.

One supposes it helps to have played together for many years, as these three friends (Sco, guitar; Steve Swallow, e-bass; Bill Stewart, drums) and jazz warriors have. Indeed, as Sco says in his brief liner notes: "The music on this CD was recorded live and I think that's the way jazz is played and heard best. Somehow, we rarely get to these places in the studio." They get to "these places," which are, in short, amazing, because of their individual brilliance and collective knowledge of each other's moves.

The most amazing place they get to is "Hammock Soliloquy," nearly ten minutes of bloozy, junk-yard-dog, shifting rhythms stitched together with some very sophisticated free-boppish passages. Somehow, it all hangs together. The intuitive band interaction combined with killer solos from both Sco and Swallow make for some might tasty listening. Swallow, although perhaps not quite as declamatory as on his recent Damage in Transit disc (but it's not his gig here, is it?), nevertheless provides nearly the perfect foil, becoming, at times, almost like "one big guitar together," as Sco puts it in his liner notes.

Other highlights include the pretty straightforward blues, "Bag," on which Sco proves he's among the greatest jazz interpreter of this music ever, helped, enormously, one must admit, by the walking brilliance of Swallow and the crazy rhythm of Stewart, who's all over his kit; "Wee," a Denzel Best standard given a way skanky treatment (which makes me wish for some more interpretations of jazz standards); and a wistfully atmospheric reading of "Alfie," where Sco proves he knows his way around a ballad by giving it a heartfelt, if slightly wackily idiosyncratic, treatment.

Over the past decade, John Scofield has proved himself to be among the greatest jazz guitarist ever. This disc, catching him in rare form on a live gig, goes a long way toward solidifying that well-deserved reputation.

One of the Best
This is one of the best Scofield cd's I've heard in a while. Be aware though that this is more straight ahead jazz than some of his previous stuff, i.e. Up All Night. So hear goes the description.

The cd is over all good, but there are some high points which I would like to point out. On the songs Hammock Soliloquy and Alfie, there are equal points for all of the band members to shine, and boy does it sure show. This cd is equally peaceful with songs like Alfie and equally powerful with songs like Name That Tune.

Here is the down side that I have to point out. John's solo's tend to sound the same after the first couple listen thru's, but then your ear gets tuned into the sounds and picks up the more subtle details. Another thing that i wish they would have done is put the bass frequencies louder. Steve Swallow has some awesome bass solo's and lines, but you usually can't here it because it tends to be a bit in the back. I would also like to point out that the drums are equallym good .

Thanks for reading my review and I hope it is helpful to you.