2016 · Album
Country for Old Men
Impulse! · Released: September 23, 2016 · Award: Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album
Country Standards Meet Postbop Conversation
Scofield pulls country classics into small-group postbop, marrying stellar playing with superb sound.
When Impulse! released Country for Old Men in September 2016, critics caught on immediately. All About Jazz gave it 4.5 stars, and John Kelman's review praised how the album marries stellar playing with superb sound in a way that satisfies ear, head, heart, and soul alike. JazzTimes reviewer Evan Haga recognized it as a project full of surprises—a set of country and western standards that, despite its concept seeming overdue given Scofield's long love of American roots music, finds the guitarist doing something different from what he'd attempted before. Rather than bending toward the idiom like he had on Piety Street (2009), here Scofield pulls his chosen classics into small-group postbop territory, letting the country elements float inside a jazz conversation instead of dominating it.
The band—Larry Goldings on piano and organ, Steve Swallow on bass, and Bill Stewart on drums—are longtime collaborators who know exactly how to follow Scofield's instincts. These are musicians who've spent years learning his language, so they move between lyrical, country-tinged ballads and fiery swingers with the kind of ease that only comes from real familiarity. The album proved substantial enough to earn Scofield a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, which validated what the critics had already sensed: that this late-career detour was genuinely worth making.
This is a mainstream release that worked immediately, not a cult record that grew into view over time. It's also not a departure so radical that it bewilders longtime listeners—Scofield's always been rooted in American music. But it does show a guitarist still willing to take chances with material and context, still interested in how standards can surprise you when you approach them from an unexpected angle.
Who's playing
Where next?
More by John Scofield
All 40 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
