The word ‘legend’ can mean many things. In the context of music, a legend can refer to an artist whose star burned exceptionally bright for a short time, an artist with an exceptionally long career, or artist whose work inspired subsequent generations of musicians. A common throughline of all of these, and nearly any definition of ‘legend,’ is impact. To be considered one of the legends, you have to make an impact, one way or another. This basic idea applies to the jazz world just as much as anywhere else. While said “impact” can also be defined in many ways, many of ‘giants’ of the jazz world are innovators. Jazz legends like Miles, Coltrane and Herbie aren’t just known for being popular artists in a commercial sense, they are known as exceptionally creative innovators-artists who set the tone for their respective eras (or, in many cases, several eras). While the world of jazz, like the world at large, has changed considerably over the last century, Jazz remains a genre rife with innovators.
Few jazz guitarists of the last century are as consistently creative as John Scofield. A legend by any measure, Scofield’s impact on the music is wide-ranging. Rising to prominence playing alongside fusion luminaries Billy Cobham and George Duke in the mid-70’s before launching a solo career and playing in Miles Davis’ band for several years in the 80’s, Scofield emerged as an exceptionally talented and distinctive musical voice. In the years since, Scofield has continued to innovate and evolve at every turn.
In every project he’s played in, whether that be a more traditional acoustic combo, a groove-heavy electric project, or (often) a project that resists simple categorization completely, Scofield brings a unique and versatile skillset to the table. While he’s rooted in jazz, Scofield’s ability to tastefully and credibly draw from aspects of many musical worlds (r&b, rock, blues, country among others) has long been a calling card. This versatility has allowed him to collaborate with not only a who’s-who of jazz musicians (Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Herbie Hancock, among MANY others), but also artists in the pop, rock, gospel, and funk worlds, ranging from John Mayer to Mavis Staples to the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh. Scofield has always had the unique gift of being able to fit harmoniously into nearly any musical context while simultaneously shaping it to his own creative vision.
In 2025, Scofield remains as busy and prolific as ever. With a new release on the horizon (Memories of Home, a collaboration with master bassist Dave Holland comes out on ECM on November 21st), many shows on the books, and even a recent network television appearance, Scofield continues to perform and create at an exceptionally high level. On Wednesday, November 12, Scofield returns to Minneapolis for a pair of shows at the Dakota. This time around, he’ll be leading his “Combo 73” featuring masters and longtime collaborators Bill Stewart, Vicente Archer, and Gerald Clayton. The group, named in honor of his 73rd year, is a continuation of sorts of his Combo 66, which featured the same musicians and released an excellent album in 2018. The shows figure to feature several new compositions and, of course, the high-level musicianship that is to be expected with a group of musicians of this caliber.
Below is an interview with John Scofield. The following has been edited for consistency.
Music in Minnesota: I first wanted to ask about Combo 73. I know it’s the same group you recorded the Combo 66 album with. I’m curious, at this time, what inspired you to get this band back together?
John Scofield: Well, you know, I love playing with those guys. When I play with a trio, it’s with the same bass and drums, Vicente and Bill. So we’re basically just adding Gerald back in again. They’re just some of my favorite musicians to play with period. It’s pretty simple, I just like playing with these people. We have a thing we can do that we’ve developed over the years. I really like playing with musicians a bunch and you sort of develop your own way of playing together, and that’s what we’ve done.
MIM: How important is continuity in a project?
JS: The more you play together, the more unspoken things work out. You can’t even talk about music with people and say “I want it like this.” It’s not like classical music, the stuff that we play. We all kind of come together, just from the amount of hours we’ve been playing and listening to each other, we know how to intuitively make the music be better. That’s something I’ve learned over the years, there’s nothing like that familiarity which allows for really good improvisation and off the cuff playing.
MIM: As far as writing goes, I read you had some new compositions for this Combo. When you write, do you write with a particular group or musicians in mind?
JS: Generally yeah, there’s some overlap where this band might play this tune as well as another, and sometimes I change things around for the group I’m playing with, maybe change the groove or something. But generally, I write for projects. So then I think about how the guys will play and what we can do together.
MIM: As far as current projects go, you also have an upcoming album with Dave Holland on ECM.
JS: Oh yeah, Memories of Home it’s called. Dave and I have been playing in Duo for a couple of years. We finally recorded, and it’s coming out on ECM. As you know, Dave is one of the great players period in the music. This was really a wonderful to get to play that much with him. I’m excited about the record.
MIM: Changing gears a little bit, As far as your musical upbringing, your signature sound (or sounds) is in many ways defined by versatility. You blend Jazz, funk, rock, and more, all in different portions at different times. I’m curious, when you were coming up, were there guitar players or other musicians who you were drawing from that were doing something similar.
JS: It was more of a natural thing. It’s not just me, it’s everybody from my generation. Most of us started out with rock and roll, and blues guitar, which really happened in the late 60’s with lightning strings and playing loud through and amp and making it distort. I mean, that wasn’t even available to the older jazz guys like Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery. So I was basically just into both things, I was into trying to play jazz on the guitar and listening to the greats from the 50’s and 40’s on guitar, but I loved blues and that whole sound of blues guitar that was really the result of what happened later on. I was all set to be a jazz guitar player, but I had this early background in rock and roll, and then fusion happened (laughs). When I started to get gigs in the 70’s, it was fusion and I had to go back to some of the rock and roll things I knew how to play. They just blended together. Then when I went back to play more of an acoustic jazz setting, which is what my Combo 73 is, I was using elements that were from rock and roll-certain sonic things on the guitar and ways to bend notes and that sort of thing. So it’s really pretty natural to me. With that said, there were guys before me who combined rock and jazz. First, Larry Coryell in the late 60’s and then John Abercrombie who was a friend of mine and a mentor. Those guys were before me and were doing It in their own way. It felt natural for me.
MIM: It’s interesting you mention Larry Coryell, that brings me to another question I had. I want to ask about some of the heroes that you’ve played with. The first one I wanted to ask about was Mingus. One of your early big gigs was playing on a Mingus record, which Larry also played on. What do you remember about those sessions, and was Mingus a big influence? He’s such an important figure in the music.
JS: Mingus is a legend. He’s one of the big names like Miles from that era, so it was incredible when I got called. I didn’t know Mingus, but I was a fan. I got called by the producer of that record to show up and be on the record. We only had one day in the studio. We had had a rehearsal without Mingus, he didn’t show up for the rehearsal. Then we recorded, and I got there, and there were like twelve musicians-it was a big band-I didn’t actually talk to him. I just sat and played (laughs). We recorded the tunes that I’m on, recorded all day, but I did not actually speak one word to him. And then, at the end, there were too many people in the control room, so I couldn’t sit there and listen to the playbacks because everyone was in there, so I just went home. It was the last record that Mingus played on, he died not long after that. I didn’t get to know him at all, but I was so lucky to be there and to be associated with him to a certain minor extent.
MIM: Another figure you mentioned earlier that you did play a lot with was Miles. There’s arguably no bigger paradigm shifter in jazz in the 20th century. I’m curious what you learned from touring with Miles. I imagine that was a really unique gig in many ways.
JS: With Miles, it was the opposite of Mingus-For three years, I was a member of his band. So, it really shaped me and changed me. I Idolized Miles so much, like a lot of us did, just from being a fan. So, getting to know him was incredibly interesting, because of his take on the music. He would talk to us about music all of the time. As a jazz fan, and as a historian, or somebody who is interested in the history of music, just to hear it out of miles was interesting. Beyond that, he was just an incredible human being, really interesting and wild and brilliant. Getting to play with him night after night was the real kicker, you know. He really sounded great. I feel so lucky to have gotten to do that with Miles, and it totally shaped me. I still think about him while I’m playing.
MIM: The last legend I want to ask about that you had an association with was the late great Phil Lesh. How did you guys originally cross paths, and what was your biggest takeaway from your experiences making music with Phil and that that scene?
JS: It was Warren Haynes who gave Phil my phone number years ago, over twenty year ago. Phil got in touch with me and auditioned me to see what I was into. I went out to Marin County and played with him and some other guys, and we hung out. He liked it, and until he passed away, every year I would do a couple of gigs with him. Mainly, Phil and Friends was a moveable feast with different musicians at different times. I got to know him over the years, and first of all, Phil was probably different from any other rock and roll musician in that he loved jazz and creative music and free music. He was a big fan of even 20th century composers of avant-garde classical music and everything. He was really interested in all of that stuff, and wanted to bring elements of free improvisation to the dead music. I think Jerry Garcia was also likeminded that way. It was really interesting because Phil really really wanted that to happen and would encourage that at the gigs-even to the point of having really free moments where nothing was happening on stage before coming back together. Very few bands outside of like modern art music and jazz will let that happen. So, Phil was great that way. The other thing was getting to learn the Dead songs. I didn’t really know that music, I wasn’t really a Deadhead, but over the years I really came to appreciate some of Jerry and Robert Hunter’s compositions, and that was nice too. It was also fun to play outside of the jazz idiom, to be in the different world a little bit, meet some other people and experience that.
