Legendary guitarist John Scofield [ tickets ], known for his stylistic 180s, is pulling another one with his current tour behind the recently released album "Works for Me" (Verve). Fresh off the rock-funk blends of "Bump" and "A Go Go"--the latter album with Medeski Martin and Wood--Scofield went to straight-ahead jazz for "Works," thanks to a chance meeting with another legend--drummer Billy Higgins.

"I'd always loved him on the Blue Note records he'd been on," Scofield explained. "And about three years ago, Charles Lloyd had a gig, Billy was the drummer, and I subbed for John Abercrombie, the other guitarist. It was a great experience, and I decided then that I wanted to make a jazz album and have Billy as the drummer, because he swings so hard. Then I thought I'd like to make a quintet with guitar and saxophone in the front-line, and a piano-bass-drums traditional kind of rhythm section, and I called the guys I liked."

LiveDaily correspondent Don Zulaica spoke with Scofield--a graduate of the Berklee College of Music--about the album, playing with Miles Davis [ tickets ], and jazz snobs.

LiveDaily: Another album, another new band. Had you known [saxophonist] Kenny Garrett?

Scofield: Yeah, I heard him a lot when he played with Miles, but actually, I'd hardly played with anybody on the album. I'd never played with Brad [Mehldau, piano]. Played with Christian [McBride, bass] a little, and with Billy just that one night.

When and where did you record it, and how long did it take?

We actually recorded it in January of 2000, at Avatar Studios in New York. I wanted to do it while Billy was in good health, because he's really had some health problems. We did it right after we recorded "Bump," so it had to sit in the can. We had just one rehearsal and went into the studio, not a lot of time. Two days.

I sent the music around to everybody. I made a tape of just me playing the tunes on the guitar for Billy, and then sent sheet music to the other guys. Then we had one rehearsal and just pretty much did it, in the spirit of hastily done jazz records. [laughs]

How do you decide to do a certain type of project, stylistically? You went from "Electric Outlet" to Medeski, Martin and Wood, and now straight-ahead.

You know what? It's really kind of intuitive. I just think, "That sounds like it would be fun to do, you know? And it seems like it would work with the way I play." [Medeski Martin and Wood], when I heard them, it just rang a bell. It hit a nerve with me, "Man, I could really play with them." I felt the same thing with Billy Higgins. It's not that much thought, in a way.

What exact years were you with Miles? Early '80s, right?

Yeah, '82 through '86.

Who else was in the band?

When I joined, it was Marcus Miller and Al Foster, and then Daryl Jones joined, and Bill Evans on saxophone. Then Bob Berg played saxophone.

How did the gig materialize for you?

Bill Evans, the saxophonist, got me on the gig. Miles wanted another guitar player to play alongside Mike Stern. Bill said, "Try Scofield," and they called me up and I joined the band.

How did you assimilate yourself into playing alongside Stern?

You know, you've gotta know when to lay out. With one guy playing chords, and the other guy playing single lines, you don't play blindly. Try not to go on automatic pilot.

How did working with Miles change your approach to making music?

In the non-musical sense, everybody kind of knew who I was after that. But it really gave me a lot of faith in jazz-rock, jazz-funk, as a style.

[Drummer] Steve Smith and I have had numerous conversations about jazz-rock "fusion," that it's an integral part of American music, but just doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Yeah, it's like a dirty word.

And yet it seems in your career you've been able to do whatever you wanted to do. Have you noticed in any change in attitude when you went in a particular direction?

You know, I'm not hip enough to be real jazz snob material. Because I do like fusion, and I do like funk, so a lot of people--the jazz snobs--sometimes don't take me that seriously. But the musicians do, they know who's playin'.

It's a lot of posing. Just because you like one thing and don't like something else, it doesn't mean the other thing is bad.

Do you think fusion will ever see something of a real revival?

I think it will come around. I mean, when jazz aficionados say they only like a certain type of thing, I kind of understand them. But I just go between different places. I'm a guitar player. If you're a guitar player, you're into electricity innately, you know?

And I never try to put down idioms, genres, because there's always some guys I like. There's not as many fusion bands I like, compared to Count Basie and the whole jazz thing that was really happening--I just never tried to think about it too much. Because you can't make those generalizations. You can't say, "Fusion sucks, real jazz is good." But I'm a jazz-rock fan. Our day will come. We'll have our own 12-part documentary.

I'll tell you though, there's a lot of real kind-of boring jazz that's trying to live up to playing straight-ahead jazz. In 32-bar forms and stuff. [sighs] It's been done so much. The history can really weigh you down. I think there's more of a future in some sort of new music. I'm not even sure what it is.

How healthy do you think jazz is today? You're putting out all these albums and doing very well.

Yeah, it's good. We're not just playing for hippies and young folks, although they came out for the last couple albums--and they don't like straight-ahead jazz. ...

There's just a jazz snob elite, that's all. They're the ones who are writing. If you make music for the writers, in order to get the good reviews--and a lot of people, I think, do that. A lot of people on this international level play music that is actually to get good reviews, sometimes. [laughs] I try not to think too much about it.

Do you have any opinion about Internet distribution, like Napster? Does it matter to you?

I have a website. It's great because people can see where you're playing, and come to your gigs. We just played in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a lot of people came from other cities around there, and they heard about us from the website. In that way, it's a great thing, a great way to share information.

As far as the Napster thing, at first I was really pissed off that people wouldn't buy CDs, and we wouldn't get paid our royalties. But the other thing is that the technology is there, I mean, I'm sure I could probably find a lot of stuff I'd like to download that I couldn't get quite so easily at my local record store.

That's a good point, about getting different or unreleased material. When the cost to make the product goes from little to nothing, it creates the potential to release a lot of "in the vault" material. Will I be able to grab some exclusive John Scofield stuff off the net anytime soon?

I would like to do that. But Verve doesn't really know--they haven't said to me, "Oh, put a bunch of stuff out." They don't want to hurt record sales, but we don't know. We'll see where it goes.

Where is the future for you, now that you're grabbing up young guys like Brad and the like?

Now that I'm close to 50, there's a whole bunch of players that are 20 years younger than me that are really playing well. So I don't exclude them because they're younger, you know? I also don't seek musicians out just because they're young, but I do like the way young musicians make themselves available to play. A lot of guys my age, it's hard to get them out of the house. [laughs] I'm probably one of those guys.

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