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Excellent early Scofield - A hidden milestone in the develop

Bjorn Jensen | California | 06/11/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This was John Scofield's first studio outing as a leader, recorded in Japan in 1977. This is certainly a highly-priced import, and I recommend it probably only to particularly avid followers of his music. With that in mind, I was totally shocked at how the majority of the music and playing on this album still sounds very fresh today. His guitar sounds quite different here compared to how it ended up in the 80s - the sound he currently uses actually bears a closer resemblance to the one used here in the 1970s. If only there were more debut studio albums released like this one today.



As of 1977, John Scofield was a fantastic guitarist with a horn-like fluency and intensity that probably made him simultaneously the strongest and least recognized guitarist-improviser of the time. Interestingly, he already had a very recognizable sound and individual improvisational language that actually differs a fair amount from the identity that emerged furthermore in 1980s and beyond.



It is quite surprising that this recording is so hard to come by. Rarely prior to this recording had there been an instance where a guitarist had recorded a blues (track #3 - "Blues For Okinawa") that had the kind of intensity, fluency and strong improvisational ideas potentially akin to the likes of someone like Joe Henderson (I seriously mean this, have a think about it). Track 5, "Un Toco Loco - Ballet" features Scofield and drummer Motohiko Hino performing in a duo context. While this might seem commonplace in today's music world, it was a very rarely seen thing for a guitarist to line himself up in an almost Coltrane/Rashied Ali-like setting at this time in history (I can only think of one other vaguely similar and notable example, also from 1977 - on Pat Metheny's "Watercolors").



This album also contains a beautiful version of Carla Bley's "Ida Lupino" - a perfect way to end the album. The only track from this album that I felt was a little weaker than the others was the solo "Amy", on which Scofield uses a strange phaser effect - just not my cup of tea, personally.



Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino plays on tracks 1 & 4.



I just don't understand why this album is not very highly regarded. The early albums of John Scofield deserve a lot more attention than they get. This one should really be in the history books as a gigantic contributor to the development of the guitar as an improvisational instrument (finally) able to hold its own amongst a jazz world of horns and pianos."