ScoLoHoFo: Oh!

This cumbersomely titled Blue Note release is a cause for celebration. It marks the recording reunion of John Scofield and Joe Lovano, who, when last we saw them on record, made a great series of CDs for Blue Note in the early ’90s. Now they’re back with a stellar rhythm section, hot off a European tour. Though Oh! is quite a bit different conceptually from Scofield and Lovano’s past work together — it’s the product of a leaderless, collaborative group — the winning combination of Scofield’s twangy guitar and Lovano’s pithy tenor is nonetheless as great as it’s ever been, and the support they receive from the bassist Dave Holland and drummer Al Foster is some of the most empathetic of their career together.

For the uninitiated, John Scofield’s recording association with Joe Lovano began in 1989 with the Blue Note record Time on My Hands. It was the debut of a particularly modern ensemble sound; indebted to Ornette Coleman’s small group innovations of the late ’50s and early ’60s, but with a unique guitar/sax front-line and its own carefully arranged songbook. Over the course of two more records, Meant to Be (1990) and What We Do (1992), the pair explored a great bunch of Scofield’s deftly arranged originals and the possibilities inherent in their growing musical empathy. Some front-line partnerships simply have magic, like Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter, or Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry — and Scofield and Lovano have it. Since disbanding in the ’90s, both musicians have talked of reuniting, but due to diverging individual careers, the two haven’t recorded together again until now.

As for the rhythm section, Holland and Foster are two of the most respected names in the business. Both played with Miles Davis at different times; Holland held the bass chair in the heady days of Davis’ first electric experiments (1968-71), and Foster replaced Jack DeJohnette to become the trumpeter’s longest running musical associate (1972-85). But both musicians have had multi-faceted careers playing with everyone from Horace Silver to Sam Rivers. Most notably as concerns this new group, the duo played together, along with John Scofield, on the late Joe Henderson’s beautiful Miles Davis tribute album, So Near So Far in 1992.

The album opens with Lovano’s “Oh!”, a medium-tempo bop line with a number of melodic twists and a slippery middle eight. The saxophonist takes the first solo, and Foster plays a subtle half-time backbeat under it — providing the kind of nuance that makes these musicians, and the record, so great. The following track, Scofield’s “Right About Now”, is a slow but insistent lament with a pretty melody that’s developed dramatically through modulation. It’s got an unexpected tag before the solos and at the end of the tune — Scofield plays a clipped Summer of Love-style rhythm and the band responds in unison with a loping bass line — that’s unique in Scofield’s discography and may be the result of his jazz-rock band’s influence. Wherever it’s from, it provides great texture and an exciting stylistic reference that elevates the tune above the norm.

The magic of the old Scofield Quartet ensemble sound is evoked on Lovano’s composition “New Amsterdam”, which sounds like it could be a leftover track from the Meant to Be sessions. The theme is reminiscent of a fractured take on Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance”, but the arrangement is all Scofield-Lovano — there’s a lot of space for the rhythm section to rumble in the foreground and the tenor and guitar blend in their inimitable way. It may be the one tune on the album that goes on a bit long at over twelve minutes; the band only finds their way to the restatement of the melody after some meandering. But there’s enough action in the first nine minutes to forgive the final three.

On a rather extended album (it would be a full double LP on vinyl) “New Amsterdam” serves as the funk centerpiece in a program that runs the gamut of jazz song forms. There’s a bossa, a ballad, a few uptempo post-bop themes, a modal tune, two bop heads, a medium swing cooker, and a bluesy original. If this laundry list of straight ahead programming makes you feel a bit skeptical about Oh!‘s contemporary relevance, be reassured that these musicians are great enough to transcend the conventions. Even the bossa, the appropriately titled “Bittersweet”, comes off swimmingly. It’s Foster’s tune, and it features a keening soprano melody and some tricky chord changes which Scofield, who is generally above even his usual high standard of invention on the whole date, navigates with extraordinary creativity.

The guitarist also does a beautiful job as an accompanist; in particular on the ballad “In Your Arms”. The Holland-penned theme pulls the best out of the entire band, in fact, making it yet another highlight. In addition to Scofield’s beautiful chording, Al Foster turns in a masterful performance, often leaving the pulse entirely to the bass and interjecting a cymbal here, a drum there. He creates a lot of space, and puts Holland’s effortless pulse in high relief. Most importantly, it sounds fresh — a quite remarkable accomplishment within such traditional parameters.

And that’s this reviewer’s final word on this recording — I wouldn’t say it’s groundbreaking, but it’s fresh and masterful and marks the reunion of one of the great front-line jazz partnerships of the past 15 years. For fans of Scofield and Lovano’s previous work, Oh! is a great way to bring in the new year. Let’s hope for more such good things in 2003.