Scofield-Metheny's "I Can See Your House From Here"

[Larry Kart]

Just listened for the first time to this 1993 disc (with Steve Swallow and Bill Stewart) and was pretty much blown away by the intensity and focus of everyone's work here. Not being that well-versed in either of the co-leaders' musics (I enjoyed early Metheny -- interviewed him once, a great guy -- but didn't much care for much from his working bands; have tended to distrust what seemed to me to be the overt bluesiness of the little Scofield I know), I wonder what those who are well-versed in Metheney and Scofield think of this one.

[CJ Shearn]

Pat plays with a lot more distortion on this thsn other albums and he has great tunes on this date. I really lovethe way his ES 175 tone is captured on this album.

[mjzee]

I've always loved this album. Besides the obvious respect the two guitarists have for each other, their styles are very complimentary, even their tones. It's not a cutting contest. Sco's tunes have the slight edge for me, but Pat's are no slouch. Great variety of tunes, too...the album plays well from beginning to end.

Larry, it sounds like you're not giving Scofield his due. He had a very strong run of albums in the '80's and '90's. The albums with Frisell burn, and the funk albums are great (check out "Groove Elation" and "Hand Jive"). For Sco, it's all about the tunes...very melodic and catchy. Not a lot of ego there. Also, the Enja's are really good (try "Out Like A Light" and "Shinola") and the Gramavision "Flat Out." Sco is fun.

[JSngry]

Early-ish Scofield is pretty damn quirky, actually "overt bluesiness" aside (and I think I know what you mean).

If you can stand to listen to Star People , maybe do. And the trios with Steve Swallow & Adam Nussbaum (all on Enja iirc) are full of nothing if not quirk. The pocket is not where my gut is, but that's me, not him. I watched a few guitar players pick that stuff all kinds of apart back in the day, and, as with anything, it's when you get exposed to that level of detail that you can more fully appreciate what's really unique and what's really just good playing. Scofield had his share of uniqueness, imo.

Metheny I've long ago come to respect the hell out of after years of reflexive distrust of excess sneakerjazz. On the long (and as of yet not nearly even slightly completed) list of Things To Get Over, that one has indeed been done gotten over. I think it was the live version of "Are You Going With Me" that did it. That shit just made sense, if you know what I mean. Maybe not so much if The Beatles weren't your Very First Musical Mindfuck, but as fate would have it, that was not to be my destiny.

As for the album in question, I've long had it but only played it a few times, and not at all recently. Either my record player system thing is crap or else the recorded sound being played back out of the speakers was too "nebulous" (as in it all sounded like a hologram) for where my ears/head were at the time. Or both. Quite possibly both.

[jeffcrom]

Interesting timing, Larry - I just read your interview with Metheny today. I'm not a huge fan of either guitarist, but I think that they've both done some very good work - as well as some stuff I never want to hear again. I'll check out House.

[Larry Kart]

I've always loved this album. Besides the obvious respect the two guitarists have for each other, their styles are very complimentary, even their tones. It's not a cutting contest. Sco's tunes have the slight edge for me, but Pat's are no slouch. Great variety of tunes, too...the album plays well from beginning to end.

Larry, it sounds like you're not giving Scofield his due. He had a very strong run of albums in the '80's and '90's. The albums with Frisell burn, and the funk albums are great (check out "Groove Elation" and "Hand Jive"). For Sco, it's all about the tunes...very melodic and catchy. Not a lot of ego there. Also, the Enja's are really good (try "Out Like A Light" and "Shinola") and the Gramavision "Flat Out." Sco is fun.

The only Scofield albums I own are "Meant To Be" and "Quiet," both of which I like but which may give me a distorted picture of a guy who has recorded lots and lots of things. Very early on, in the mid or late '80s, I reviewed him in a club, and that's where I heard and was put off by what seemed to me to be the overt bluesiness. I just don't in general care for what strikes me as obligatory note-bending and the like -- obligatory in that what I think of as (or what ought to be) tokens of strong emotion are being slathered all over the place in a semi-arbitrary manner.

[CJ Shearn]

The distortion Pat plays with on this album as I said, I really like, pretty sure it's the hexaphonic distortion of the Roland GR300 in the guitar mode. Around this time he usually used the Roland fitted with the Synclavier controller when he used distortion. "The Red One" is a classic as is "Say the Brother's Name", with really great changes. Harmonically my ear hears a kinship with "So May It Secretly Begin", and "Quiet Rising" is a section from Part 2 of Zero Tolerance for Silence.

[JSngry]

. I just don't in general care for what strikes me as obligatory note-bending and the like -- obligatory in that what I think of as (or what ought to be) tokens of strong emotion are being slathered all over the place in a semi-arbitrary manner.

Just curious, do you hear Scofield's note bending as being a manipulation of pitch, timbre, or both?

Edited March 2, 2013 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

. I just don't in general care for what strikes me as obligatory note-bending and the like -- obligatory in that what I think of as (or what ought to be) tokens of strong emotion are being slathered all over the place in a semi-arbitrary manner.

Just curious, do you hear Scofield's note bending as being a manipulation of pitch, timbre, or both?

Almost certainly both -- but then I'm thinking of stuff I heard Scofield play in person a long time ago, not much, if anything, that I have on record of his AFAIK.

[JSngry]

His earlier stuff (which for me goes up to right about the time he left Miles) strikes me as a guitar version of Lockjaw in terms of how the pitch manipulation seems to be a not unwelcome but also also probably unavoidable side-effect of the timbral variation. In other words,, he's going for the "sound" first, and that just happens to be what happens to the pitch once the sound comes out.

Of course, in the world of post-Hendrix jazz guitarists, things are always going to be like that...sometimes for good, sometimes not.

But for real, listen to Star People. There's some really quirky, personalized guitar playing going on there, and not just in terms of timbre, but also in terms of phrasing and internal accents relative to the harmony, again, not unlike some weird parallel universe version of Lockjaw. I've heard him (Scofield) say something to the effect that it was him semi-stumbling because he couldn't quite figure out what he was going to play until he began to play it, but....hmmm...maybe that's not a bad thing?

And fwiw, the one time I got to see Miles live was the transitional period when both Stern & Scofield were in the band. Even if Stern was "role-playing" per Miles' direction (and I've no reason to doubt that), there was a distinct contrast in evidence as far as who was hearing what how. But that was a long time ago and having a career in jazz is probably even more an issue of delivering product that meets expectations than it ever was (or maybe not?). I'll just say that at some point the quirk seemed to be less of a so, and that was kind of a drag to me, because that whole "thing" is DELIGHTFUL when there's quirk involved, and not really when it's not. But that's just me.

[StarThrower]

Scofield's Grace Under Pressure w/Frisell, and Time On My Hands w/ Lovano are tops for this listener. Also the first Bass Desires album on ECM. Scofield is a great writer, and all of his albums have quality tunes. The last one I picked up is This Meets That, and it's another strong album.

I like all of the tunes on the album with Metheny, but Metheny's guitar tones are pretty crappy on that one.

[A Lark Ascending]

A record I like a great deal. I bought it around the time it came out, knowing PM's music quite well, unfamiliar with JS. Coming from a more folksy background , PM connected early whereas JS's more bluesy approach was a taste I had to acquire.

I got a bit tired of PM a few years back - just a bit too rawk, an aversion to the synth sounds. But over recent days I've been backtracking and enjoying PM, including the more recent Unity Band record.

One thing I like about him is that wide open, optimistic feel to his playing. That's quite rare - contemporary jazz tends to favour a more oblique, knowing, guarded approach. PM still sounds like an enthusiastic college boy, excited by the world's possibilities. It would be annoying if everyone sounded like that - but given how rare it is, he makes a welcome change.

[erwbol]

The Scofield DVD Live In Montreal with Lovano is the equal of their first two studio albums to me. The only post Quiet Scofield I enjoyed was Trio Live - EnRoute.

I Can See Your House From Here is about the only Metheny album I can stand to listen to.

Of course I'm in no way well-versed in anything.

[David Ayers]

Bought it on issue, never loved it, eventually sold it, re-listening now on spotify.. apart from anything else I find the tunes a bit of a drag...

[David Ayers]

Sign of Four on the other hand...

[A Lark Ascending]

Most of Metheny's mainstream recordings - the PMG etc - sound to me like an instrumental version of 'Rumours'-era Fleetwood Mac. Not what I want every day but something I find melodic and upbeat. Good music for driving to.

He definitely has a 'signature sound'. What makes him interesting is his willingness to regularly go off at a tangent. '80/81' is the one I keep returning to.

[robertoart]

Star People was the first time I was able to catch 'the Miles bus' in 'real' time.

All the 'guitar boys' had a hard-on for Fat Time, until they heard 'Sco' on Star People.

I think I got off at the next stop though, or maybe the one after that

Never used 'the Miles bus' again, unless the car broke down, or I was too drunk to drive.

Oh yeah, I did get interested again when I heard Jean Paul Bourelly was in the mix, now there's a 'badass'.

[robertoart]

'Overt Bluesiness'

Got it in one right there.

Someone should write a paper on it...

John Scofield

Towards a Praxis Of Overt Bluesiness In American Improvised Music,

For Profit And Pleasure

[Larry Kart]

Mike Stern -- now there's a nightmare example of (dubious IMO) overt blusiness.

About the tunes on this album, I liked some of them a good deal. Quirky and in some cases Ornette-ish, I thought.

[StarThrower]

Overt blusiness is a superficial criticism of these guitarists. I love Scofield's earthy sound, and he's a great improviser. As for Stern, his albums are too samey sounding for my taste.

As far as two guitar match ups go, Sco & Frisell, and Metheny & Frisell sound the most natural to my ears. Marc Johnson's The Sound Of Summer Running features the latter pairing.

[mjzee]

I never liked "Quiet," and it's definitely atypical of Sco's output. In general, I'd go with the Verves last (although there are some enjoyable ones); hard to say why, tho maybe it's just too much output.

Edited March 2, 2013 by mjzee

[JSngry]

Mike Stern -- now there's a nightmare example of (dubious IMO) overt blusiness.

Try obvious flashy head-banger...not too much "bluesiness" to it all...but he insists that Miles insisted that he play that way, and like I said, I have no problem believing that so.

[StarThrower]

How about the Joe Henderson/Scofield album, So Near, So Far? These cats sound great together!

[robertoart]

The pitch/tone sound your trying to identify in Scofield, is, I believe, an outcome of his Legato technique, which means he plays his lines with lots of hammer-ons and pull-offs. A process native to the Guitar. I have an audio copy of a superb clinic Scofield did in the early 80's, where he identifies this for the students.

The basic transcription is...

"I have very bad right hand technique, I can't alternate pick very well, and so what I've learned to do and what a lot of other players lately have learned to do, and this is the sort of Jim Hall legato type school, is to not actually pick every note, but using hammer-ons - where the second note is hammered on - it's not actually picked - and using pull-offs - which is the same process in reverse...and finger slides. I've basically learned how to play fairly quickly - and to me sometimes it's even a smother sound than alternate picking. So if I were to play a Cmajor scale - I would play the first one - then hammer on - then pick the second and third - then hammer on -then pick the next one -then the next one -then hammer on.....now if I try to do that using alternate picking...yuk...I can't get nothing out of it. It sounds really bad. So I use a legato technique and not pick every note"

So there you go. Pat Metheny has a variation on this approach, and so does Bill Frisell.

I tend to to like the alternate pickers such as Martino and Benson

Edited March 2, 2013 by freelancer

[Larry Kart]

Mike Stern -- now there's a nightmare example of (dubious IMO) overt blusiness.

Try obvious flashy head-banger...not too much "bluesiness" to it all...but he insists that Miles insisted that he play that way, and like I said, I have no problem believing that so.

"obvious flashy head-banger" -- right.