As soon as I scanned the playlist of John Scofield's new album, Uncle John's Band (ECM), I said to myself, "On the Road meets the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." I imagined Dean Moriarty's 1949 Hudson Commodore and Ken Kesey’s 1939 International Harvester school bus of Merry Pranksters both broken down at the same spot on a road heading West. Standing on the shoulder, all of the stranded passengers are mingling together. Then Sco drives up in a new RV with his bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Bill Stewart in tow. He asks the group if they want a lift. Everyone piles in.
One of the oddities and pleasures of Sco's new album is how it wanders through two countercultures, one jazz-minded and one rock-minded. The tracks are Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, Sco's How Deep and TV Band, Miles Davis and Bud Powell's Budo, Sco's Nothing Is Forever, Neil Young's Old Man, Sco's The Girlfriend Chord, the standard Stairway to the Stars, Sco's Mo Green and Mask, Leonard Bernstein's Somewhere, Ray Brown and Gil Fuller's Ray's Idea and Jerry Garcia and Bob Hunter's Uncle John's Band.
I know. What a thematic mess. Except it works brilliantly. What binds these standards rooted in two very different generations are Sco's treatments and his original compositions, which establish a transitional groove and fill in the gaps. At first glance, the song list looks like a Dutch oven simmering with everything left in the fridge prior to a fresh shop. But the song mix turns out to be quite compelling and cohesive and never dull.
Recorded at Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, N.Y., in August 2022, Uncle John's Band, is an album for wanderlust-minded jazz and rock fans. That combination isn't as foreign as it may seem. One must remember that before record-store chains divided music styles into bins, jazz, rock and pop intermingled. Many young jazz artists from Sco's generation in the 1960s were completely aware of the new scene emerging with the rise of the electric guitar. They bought the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper LP, they went to San Francisco and hung out, and they thought about the future differently. Then they decided jazz was it and pioneered a new electric interpretation.
In some ways, Sco's album simply picks up where he left off decades ago. But there's nothing retro or nostalgic about it. His new album blurs the boundaries between the generational songs and turns all of them into an overarching concept of spiritual determination and renewal. As with all of Sco's recordings, none of these songs are given a straight read. They are contorted, distorted and then given a sweet-and-sour wash. There's texture, yearning and a sense of hair-blown freedom. Vincente and Bill are perfect soulmates for this ride. Vincente's bass throbs and runs fascinating zig-zaging lines while Bill's drums go here and there and everywhere with polyrhythms and sudden cymbal crashes. Sco's guitar is always a fascinating interlocutor that regularly breaks new ground.
And that's what I love most about this album, that wonderful sense of open-road freedom when you're driving long distance, something many people are likely to be doing in the coming weeks. I'd love to take this album with me on a drive to the Hamptons, up to New England or to Woodstock and vicinity. All of these songs tug on adventurous strings and sound fresh and contemporary. Thanks to the trio, they also sound brand new.
From my seat on Sco's RV, the ride is colorful and mind-expanding and the multi-generational choices are in sync. Next stop Grammysville!
JazzWax tracks: You'll find John Scofield's Uncle John's Band (ECM), a double album, here. It also can be heard on the usual streaming platforms.
JazzWax clips: Here's Sco's composition TV Band...
And here's Neil Young's Old Man...
