John Scofield

[cosmic gumbo]

I get that. And I'm not dissing him. I have several of his records. But I just don't think of him as great in the same way as I do the others I mentioned. Perhaps I should, perhaps it's a blind spot, but I just don't. He's like a singer with a limited range but a strong emotional appeal----I can really appreciate that (I love Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, for example), but to me, it ain't in the same league as Ella, a truly great singer. (YMMV, of course.)

When this Joe Henderson album came out back in 1992, Sco earned my respect after hearing him support Joe and do whatever it took to serve the music and give Joe the perfect harmonic background to sound his best. As good as Hall's work for Sonny, IMO.

[jazzguy100]

Sco would've went through a traditional phase. his teachers would've been old timers and they would've taught him what they knew. he wouldve made the choice not to be like those guys. i bet sco could pull off straight jazz better than any of the old timers tryin to pull off fusion or some skunky funky hip stuff. sco's got a more diverse background

[Irez87]

Saw this yesterday posted on FB.

Attachment 26396

I agree. Completely.

Jazz has also become a marketable commodity. I am as guilty as everyone else of having a library of books (the old books from the 1930s to the 60s were better than what we got today. I also use ear training products.

But I still agree.

Buy this book and learn jazz in one week.

Buy this guitar and you will sound like Wes.

Buy these strings and you will sound like George Benson.

Watch my youtube videos while I wow you with special effects and talk about picking (I enjoyed some of his work... but yeah)

Go to my music college and go broke while I tell you what NOT to play...

Use this music theory to figure out how to make music out of going to the bathroom (the cats back then had a very different approach to theory. It was an adventure instead of a prison)

What we've lost is embarrassing...

1. True musical mentors

2. Learning to play while playing in a big band

3. The oral tradition

4. Playing music that people can dance to

5. Listening to the audience

That's just a short list that I am sure others here can continue.

Sometimes progress sucks.

[larry graves]

Sco would've went through a traditional phase. his teachers would've been old timers and they would've taught him what they knew. he wouldve made the choice not to be like those guys. i bet sco could pull off straight jazz better than any of the old timers tryin to pull off fusion or some skunky funky hip stuff. sco's got a more diverse background

I read somewhere,that when asked, why don't you play in a more traditional style of jazz, John Mac replied "Wes did it".....L..

[wolflen]

John's sure got a great feel to much of his playing. Curiously, I didn't care for his work with Miles (and I love Miles). I like John best when he's bluesy / funky / groovy. But you know, I don't think of him as a jazz guitarist in the way I think of, say, Charlie or Wes or Barney or Herb Ellis or Kenny Burrell. I don't think he's in their orbit. (Not that I'm in his!)

I hear what your saying .. I just watched a Pat Martino/Scofield version of Sunny..yes VERY different styles..and depending on how you hear..Martino just smoked Sco..but if they were playing a Sco composition..it might be a different story...

then I watched two players who are on the same level so to speak Steve Lukather and Larry Carlton...both top notch studio players and have been in top groups and backed many artists..and Im sure most would say their level of playing is pretty much equal..which is to most players..unreal

[kris]

[aleksandar]

That's the thing. Practicing without applying is pointless and boring.

[Hep To The Jive]

Somebody need to post it in Arpeggio Drills thread, just to have a perspective I agree pretty much with everything he says. I can't spend more than 10 min on playing scales or arpeggios all over the neck, it's boring! Now, in a tune application it so much better.

Licks, exactly, that's what we need- dissecting, analyzing, absorbing licks make much more sense!

Learning tunes for gigs is what the majority of practice time for, of course! If you have 3 gigs in one week with different people, playing different tunes, are you gonna practice scales or the tunes? It doesn't take a genius to figure that out, right?

[smokinguit]

What Scofield is saying is that once you got the scale under your finger make music with them. However, in the beginning you have to be mechanical about it so that you learn where the notes are at and this takes a while. At this stage don't worry too much about making music. This will slow down your ability to map out where the notes are. Learning to make music with scales involve listening to how great players make music with scales. So listen carefully and transcribe from day one. Keep imitating no matter how hard it feels at first. You will figure it out. Again this stuff takes awhile. It ain't easy. I'm still trying to conquer this. Just stay the course, whatever that may be for you.

[aleksandar]

Transcribing means learning the song, don't you think? Of what use would be a transcribed solo if you don't know the harmony underneath it? That's why, of course it is essential to learn where the notes are, the scales, arps and all that. But he says that after you familiarize with it, it is pointless to sit all day practicing the scales in a circle of fifths. A good way to practice the scales like that would be to practice them against II-V's in the circle of fifths, and of course, to learn to listen how those scales apply in a song.

Because, one of the strongest features in jazz is the the context and microharmony. You can't learn that by practicing scales all day long, just to get to a point to be fast as lightning in executing them.

[wolflen]

scales..arpeggios draw a border on a musical landscape..that you fill in with melodic and harmonic structures..tunes and compositions .. but there is no reason to stop at the borders .. this is where improvisation lives .. this is where you learn to fly without a safety net..this is where you not only hear music..but BE music..

learning the fretboard is a separate study that is critical on guitar..as it is an illogical instrument..compared to piano..so scales and arp studies in all positions and all keys is essential to get some sense of order..after scales and arps..melodic patterns should be part of breaking down the diatonic notes in a key into 3 and four note patterns that incorporate interval and string skipping techniques..there are several hundred of them just in ascending forms..just about every tune ever created can be heard in part with this type of study..adding rhythmic patterns to this opens up more recognition of many well known tunes and gives us many new melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas

being able to move these ideas to all positions and keys until they are our second nature is the goal in the study of jazz

[kris]

I/ve transcribed all Scof's video "On improvisation".
In my opinion it is the best 45 minutes jazz education material from the master.

[MarkRhodes]

I/ve transcribed all Scof's video "On improvisation".
In my opinion it is the best 45 minutes jazz education material from the master.

That's impressive. What is the most important thing you learned from that? (By 'most important' I mean the thing you got from it that you still use the most---or are influenced by the most---in your own playing?)

[MarkRhodes]

Somebody need to post it in Arpeggio Drills thread, just to have a perspective

Well, that thread was started by someone who wanted help in getting arpeggios down. That is, he wasn't where Sco' says you have to be: where you KNOW that stuff and THEN start putting it to use in tunes. If you don't know it, how can you use it?

I do appreciate his point about putting things to work in songs. When I was learning the 'vamps' (-lines over a single chord) in Herb Ellis's "All the Shapes You Are," I would think of where to put them in tunes. "O, this would be a great intro for 'Why Don't You Do Right?', and that thing would be a good intro for 'I'm in the Mood for Love,' and this dominant thing would work over the bridge of rhythm changes.....' Sometimes I use the two-chorus blues solo from Mickey Baker's first book, played rubato, as an intro to "I'm Just A Lucky So-And-So." And a 12-bar blues in G thing I like as an intro to "On the Atchison, Topeka & the Santa Fe." They set the mood I'm after.

Nowadays I'm playing scales and arpeggios more than I normally do because I'm working in Richie Zellon's bebop improvisation course. 7 fingers for Mixolydian, 7 for Dorian, 7 for Ionian, and so on. Lots of work. Could take a year to get them all down. Maybe longer. So be it.

As for Reg's fingerings, I've been giving those 5-10 minutes a day. They're not hard. They are easier than other fingerings I have learned because they're more consistent. They have a constant frame of reference. I wish I'd learned those when I was thirteen! But Reg is clear about not practicing these things now. He doesn't have to. He learned them. But until you learn them, you don't know, and if you don't know them, you can't use them.

Same thing with chord voicings. I don't practice 6-4-3-2 grips because I learned them already. 4-3-2-1 grips are newer to me and I'm not fluent in them yet. So I have to give those some practice time.

[kris]

That's impressive. What is the most important thing you learned from that? (By 'most important' I mean the thing you got from it that you still use the most---or are influenced by the most---in your own playing?)

...most important' I mean the thing you got from it ...


Musical thinking in artistic way...every line playing by Scof is like etude for me.His examples about modes are very musical.There are not machanical examples.I like them and still practise/wholtone staff,pentatonic,chromatic dorian,melodic minor.modes etc.../.I analyse Scof lnguage...:-)

[jazzman321]

Many thanks to Kris - great vid. Food for thought. I've recently really got stuck into drilling scales, chords and arpeggios mainly because I'm currently working on Mimi Fox's Arpeggio studies on Jazz Standards and her Truefire Graduated Solos course (the two really go well together). Excellent tutorials and highly recommended.

My practice time (right now) has become consumed by drills - I'm not playing anywhere enough music. This is nothing to do with the material I'm working on, I made a conscious decision to work on the technicals at the expense of the music. This is all wrong.

The JS video comes just at the right time for me. I have to shift the emphasis from drilling to actually playing music. I'm as guilty as the next person in that I 'do the drills' because they're 'safe'. When playing music, you have stick your neck out and take a little (or big) risk and that's when risk aversion can take a hold. And it can be a real obstacle. What JS is saying to me is, even if you haven't got the arpeggios absolutely nailed, learn the music and apply them in context. It doesn't matter if you have stop to get them right, you'll learn them and understand them far better through practical application.

As JS says in the vid:

"...It's really important to start right from the beginning playing music. Playing songs, playing improvisations. I'll stop and I'll say here's this chord change and I want to get this kinda thing, this arpeggio or whatever together and I'll stop and practice that. I practice it for a reason, because I have a musical application for it."
Brilliant.

[mr. beaumont]

Classic country rules. Great melodies.

[marcwhy]

Well, with that band, there's no way they could play "bad music!" I'll buy the CD -- Sco's one of my favorites!

[jbromusic]

check out the tune "i'm so lonesome i could cry". it's some of the hippest sh!t sco has EVER played!

[yebdox]

Anytime Sco picks up a guitar, I will listen. I have to get this ASAP. Anyone catch the YouTube vids of his blues gig from a couple of years ago with Robben Ford? I forget where, the Meridian or somewhere.

Chameleon is not the right term, Sco is more of a progenitor, wherever he turns his attention... New Orleans funk, blues, west coast cool, miles, and I wouldn't even know how to classify his Uberjam group, other than great. Also really love his writing and playing on Quiet. I think he should tackle Brazilian next.

[Hep To The Jive]

I listened to the tunes on youtube, damn, I guess I have to buy this album too! Sco, what are you doing? Most my jazz guitar collection it's your albums! Haha but seriously, there is no other guitarist I enjoy listening improvise and not get tired.

Plus, now he recorded those dreadful tunes from Mel Bay book 1, and made them sound amazing. That's something!

[pkirk]

I hear Sco a couple nights ago doing this stuff. I was apprehensive going there, as country music doesn't work so well for me, but my bandmates talked me into it, and, like every other time Ive seen him, the show was incredible. The tunes were just launchpads for the usual Sco thing. His tone was incredible, it was just guitar/cord/amp, no distortion pedal, although he was overdriving the tube amp. Bill stewart was also his amazing self. Sco managed to take one of the worst radio hits of the last 40 years, kenny Roger's "the gambler", and turn it into a burning vamp tune. That takes talent!

[jaco]

I'm interested in what some of you think, from an artistic side as well as well just liking what he is doing. I've been intrigued by his going into Ray Charles, Organ Trios, Phil Lesh, Warren Haynes, etc. I think some of it works others so, so...

[takauya]

I love his Ray Charles tribute album the best. Steve Jordan did a great job on producing it. Japanese edition has a Drown In My Own Tears as a bonus track and I gotta say it's the best track of all. One of Sco's best playing I've ever heard. So emotional. I lost it and haven't listened it for many many years. Gotta find it again.
Oh, the one he did with Brian Blade, the ballad album. That was fantastic too. He plays the best when he plays ballads.
And also the one he played an acoustic with bigband. That's my favorite. Quiet! Just remembered it.

[kris]

John Scofield-he is my nr 1 over 40 years...;-)