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ENROUTE
(Verve)
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Guitar virtuoso John Scofield’s playing is so brainy that his lines bristle with wit — his humor is a direct product of his smarts. He likes loping, funk-inflected melodies (here it’s the alternately dreamy and swinging "Hammock Soliloquy"), and his improvised lines tend to turn back and comment on themselves. This, after all, is the guy who wrote a wonderful jazz tune based on Allan Sherman’s "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" (in turn borrowed from Amilcare Ponchielli’s "Dance of the Hours"). For a 2003 tour, from which this set is drawn, Scofield jettisoned his Überjam band and all its attendant gadgetry (well, most of it) and convened bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart for some straight-head jazz blowing. Of course, for Scofield, straight-ahead takes in a very wide field. On a bebop warhorse like Denzil Best’s "Wee," his phrasing is infinitely varied, as is his tone — squeezed-out bends, spiraling single-note lines, tart clusters of chords and octaves. At times ("Toogs" or the funky TV-theme-from-hell "Over Big Top"), he even breaks into Joe Morris–like free-jazz ecstasies. The potentially saccharine Bacharach/David "Alfie" becomes a vehicle for Jim Hall–like eloquence. And the rest of the trio is made in Heaven: Stewart’s crisp, horn-like patterns, Swallow’s six-string electric bass ranging from a guitar upper register to a subsonic throb (how can he hear such lyrical melodies so far down?). Maybe it’s not laugh-out-loud, but there’s plenty here to smile about. (The John Scofield Trio, with Steve Swallow and Bill Stewart, appears this Monday and Tuesday, June 14 and 15, at the Regattabar, in the Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street in Harvard Square; call 617-876-7777.)
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