John Scofield: Uncle John's Band featuring Vicente Archer & Bill Stewart (2LP) [ECM RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket. It's Scofield's first album as leader for ECM producer Manfred Eicher, a trio date that mixes his own tunes with Miles Davis, Neil Young, Leonard Bernstein and the Grateful Dead.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

John Scofield has spent decades as a sideman on ECM and its sister labels, so it took a while for Uncle John to get his own band on the label. When it happened, he brought old friends: Bill Stewart has been his drummer of choice since the 1990s, and bassist Vicente Archer has been a regular in the trio for years. They cut the album in August 2022 at Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, New York, with Tyler McDiarmid engineering.

The songbook roams wide. Neil Young's "Old Man," Bernstein's "Somewhere" and the Grateful Dead's "Uncle John's Band" sit next to Miles Davis' "Budo," Ray Brown's "Ray's Idea" and the standard "Stairway To The Stars." Scofield's own pieces include "Back In Time," "The Girlfriend Chord," "Mask" and "Mo Green," which grows out of his older tune Green Tea, and "Nothing Is Forever" is dedicated to his son Evan.

It's loose, warm and conversational, three players who know each other well enough to take their time. The title track closes things out, which is about as good a way to end a long jam as any of us has found.

Also at Kops: more John Scofield on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On ECM (cat# 558 0299), the 2023 album.