A Peaceful Moment With a Jazz Icon

John Scofield is a man at peace. After nearly forty years and enough records to stuff Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks, the man known as Sco has released an album that perfectly exemplifies him as a guitar player – cool, confident, and full of the experience that only comes after decades writing and recording music.

A Moment’s Peace is not stereotypical Scofield. Gone are the incendiary leads and frenetic, funky jams that he has become known for. This is a set of ballads – ranging from the unique (a relaxed cover of The Beatles’ “I Will”) to the smooth and groovy (“You Don’t Know What Love Is”) to the laid-back and delicate (“Already September,” a standout Scofield composition).

Scofield was kind enough to sit down and chat about his newest album, reaching jazz maturity, passing the torch and what it was like to play with the great Miles Davis.

A Moment’s Peace is, like the title suggests, much more tranquil than many of your other albums. What prompted the shift in tone and mood on this album?

I kind of shift tone and mood somewhat for all of my albums. The temptation when you’re a jazz musician is to just make the same record over and over again because you like jazz and you want to get it right. I like to have all of them actually be a little bit different, in order to get some variety. I feel like I’m actually able to play ballads now. I’ve always been a fan of jazz performances of ballads and slow material, but I feel like I’m good at it now. It took me a while to reach a certain maturity.

What made you finally feel comfortable with playing ballads?

I think it was experience, and I’ve been primarily been in my career really working on hot guitar playing.

Many have identified your music as being chop-heavy and really virtuosic. Do you think that it’s important to branch out like you did with this album or with your gospel songs on Piety Street?

I think that the whole chops thing is a dead-end street. Anybody who tries to play virtuosically, with gratiutiotous virtuosic playing, well, that’s not what music’s about.

Where did you find a lot of inspiration for this album?

I think it’s really the greats of music that inspire me, on this album and for all things. I do get a lot of inspiration from the greats of jazz, really, and their ballad performances. Miles (Davis), (John) Coltrane, Ben Webster was a great ballads player and Bill Evans on the piano, to name a few.

What  about the band you’ve assembled for this album? Have you ever worked with Brian Blade (drums), Scott Colley (bass) and Larry Goldings (piano/organ) before?

Larry Goldings, I’ve worked with a lot. He’s been on a number of my albums and was actually in my band for a while. Colley I’ve worked with a little bit, and Blade this was the first time I’ve ever recorded or really worked with him, so it was new to play with him.

Were there any challenges to playing together with a new band?

Not really, because I knew they were all really great. I knew I wanted to play with Brian Blade, and I asked him who he pictured us getting on bass, because I wanted the drummer and the bass player to really be in love. He suggested to get Colley, who I knew anyway, and knew he was a great player. So they wanted to play together and Goldings is just a perfect fit for me, anyway, because we’ve played together so much. Luckily we just made the record. There was no problem.

Who would you consider some of your biggest influences musically throughout your career?

I would say the biggest influences have been the guys I’ve played with who were better than me. That goes kind of across the board from when I first started out. One of the big influences was Miles Davis. I could get to play in his band and really learn from him but he had been my favorite before that from his records. One thing is that I’m going to be 60 this month, and I have gotten to check out a lot of jazz. I’m a student of it just like everyone is.  Its been a long time but I’ve learned a little bit from this guy and a little bit from that guy and it doesn’t stop. All the greats, all the big names that everyone knows about, I’ve really listened to; they’re great for a reason.

You mentioned you’ve played with Miles, you’ve played with Chet Baker, Charles Mingus. What was it like playing with those real giants of jazz?

I got nervous, but it was an ecstatic experience getting to play with the guys who I had grown up listening to their records. Joe Henderson was another guy like that – Herbie Hancock, Gary Burton. I feel like I’ve really been lucky that I’ve gotten to play with my idols and that may be the greatest thing about playing music is getting to play with these legends. I’m a jazz fan first. I think all of us are – you have to love the music more than anything.

Did playing with those guys shape the way you play and compose music?

Not only those guys, but all of the musicians in my career who were a step ahead of me, the older players, that’s how we learn. We pass down the experience from one person to another.

So where’s that experience being passed today?

Well, it’s being passed to the younger musicians that get a chance to play with people who know what they’re doing. I think it’s always been like that. I think music is history in a way; it’s like living history. When you can talk to a musician who can talk to you about music and play for you and show you how they approach improvising and jazz and composition, tell you what they like, you’re learning a little piece of history.

You have this tour in support of your new album; you’ve had a few records in the past few years – what’s the next step in your career?

I hope to just keep making records and keep performing. It looks like I’m gonna get my wish. I’d like to get better – I’d like to write some good songs. I’d like to write some stuff that really works and keep working on it. Write some new tunes and maybe even get better on the guitar, you never know.