Scofield grew up in Connecticut and came up through Berklee and the New York scene in the mid-1970s, working with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker before landing a gig with Miles Davis from 1982 to 1985. That period is where a lot of people first heard him, but even then he wasn't just a sideman finding his footing — he was already doing his own thing.
His guitar sound is the first thing anyone notices: slightly overdriven, almost rubbery, sitting somewhere between the clean tone of most jazz guitarists and rock's high-gain crunch. He bends notes in ways that feel bluesy without being corny, and ends phrases like he's hearing them for the first time himself.
His Gramavision records from the mid-1980s are where he hit his stride as a leader. Still Warm (1986) and Blue Matter (1987) leaned hard into funk and groove. Those records still sound great — not dated the way a lot of that era's fusion can feel. A Go Go (1998), with Medeski Martin & Wood, introduced him to a crowd that came in through the jam-band side of things. Some jazz purists grumbled; the playing was genuinely strong.
He's kept recording well into his seventies, and Combo 66 (2018) is as sharp as anything from thirty years earlier. He's not trying to reinvent anything at this point — there's real pleasure in hearing someone this good just play. Full catalog on his artist page.