Description
Named for the Grateful Dead song that concludes this inspired double album, Uncle John's Band features masterful guitarist John Scofield at his most freewheeling. Wide ranging repertoire finds his trio with Vicente Archer and Bill Stewart tackling material from Dylan's "Mr Tambourine Man" to Neil Young's "Old Man", from Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere" to the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool classic "Budo". And jazz standards including "Stairway to the Stars" and "Ray's Idea" rub shoulders with seven Scofield originals that are variously swing, funk and folk-inflected. The red thread through the programme is the trio's tremendous improvisational verve.
"I feel like we can go anywhere," says John Scofield of the group's multi-directional versatility.
Uncle John's Band was recorded at Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, New York, in August 2022.
John Scofield: guitar
Vicente Archer: double bass
Bill Stewart: drums
Press:
"It's his most absorbing and compelling album for a long while, simply because it captures the freewheeling let's-see-where-the-music-takes-us ethos that characterises Scofield's playing in live performance, set loose in a variety of compositional moods that all have groove as their bottom line." -
**** Jazzwise
"A welcome return to the flowing modernism and rocky bite that made him a go-to player for the likes of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Herbie Hancock earlier in his career...Archer and Stewart provide inspiration and support, and the guitarist's commanding form makes each bend, whine and gentle strum count." -
**** Financial Times
"Scofield, that most catchily blues-boppish of jazz guitarists, leads Uncle John's Band, an artfully hip trio set including a harmonically delicious Mr Tambourine Man, plenty of bass-walking fast bop like Scofield's own How Deep, and Birth of the Cool's Budo, plus several originals infused with the guitarist's telltale laconic lyricism." -
The Guardian