CD: Uncle John's Band

"Uncle John's Band" is titled after the Grateful Dead song that closes this inspired double album and presents the masterful guitarist John Scofield in adventurous, easy-going form. His trio with Vicente Archer and Bill Stewart masters a wide-ranging repertoire, from Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" to Neil Young's "Old Man", from Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere" to Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool" classic "Budo". And jazz standards such as "Stairway to the Stars" and "Ray's Idea" stand alongside seven Scofield originals influenced by swing, funk and folk. The trio's enormous joy of improvisation runs like a common thread through the program. "I have the feeling that we can go anywhere," says John Scofield about the group's versatile genre pluralism.
"Uncle John's Band" was recorded at the Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, New York.