John Scofield is a guitar virtuoso. He can make his guitar, seemingly, do anything he wants short or having it buy a round of drinks. Brad Mehldau is a keyboard virtuoso. No appreciable space exists between sounds in his head (I imagine) and the sounds that emanate from his piano or, as he showed last week at The Blue Note, from his electronic keyboards. Mark Guiliana is a virtuoso on drums. The most memorable quote about him was from Tony Visconti when he spoke about producing the final David Bowie album. “Mark Guiliana changed all our lives!” What a way to kick off The Blue Note Jazz Festival 2016: these three men, on stage in New York City as a trio for the first time ever, playing eleven freshly born songs that they had collaborated on.
‘Freshly born’ is not an overstatement. Scofield explained that they had exchanged emails and sound files for a while but it was only a few days before the first gig that they had been able to get together to give them their initial work out in person. The musicians used some sheet music on stage that, as Mehldau mentioned during the set, would no doubt become unnecessary by the end of their six night stand which ended Sunday.
Scofield revealed that the three had not even spoken about bringing the new trio into the studio yet. However, when I asked him if fans could be optimistic, he said that after they do a big tour of Europe that starts in Slovenia at the end of the month, they could kick around the possibility of an album and that he sure hopes so. Scofiield/Mehldau/Guiliana will return to the states for what promises to be memorable appearance at the Detroit Jazz Festival in September. Sco will also turn up at the Newport Jazz Festival in July with his quartet featuring Joe Lovano.
