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ScLoHoFo
OH!
(BLUE NOTE)

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John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Dave Holland, and Al Foster not only honed this material in two separate tours (1999 and 2002) but have a lifetime of collaborations among them: Lovano in Scofield’s early-’90s quartet and going back to their Berklee days; Scofield with Al Foster in Miles Davis’s band; Scofield, Holland, and Foster with Joe Henderson. And there isn’t a toss-off tune in the bunch, either — all originals, no standards, with takes on bop, ballads, bossa, and free jazz. Although Lovano’s personal angle on post–Rollins/Coltrane tenor sax has become one of the most familiar sounds in jazz, he surprises on every chorus, alternately biting into rapid clusters of notes with fierce articulation and smearing little up-and-down spirals. His soprano work is just as compelling on pieces like Holland’s ballad "In Your Arms." As for Scofield, you might not realize how tired you were of the "überjam" Sco until you hear him here: playing long arcs of eighth notes varied with all manner of punctuating chords and tart intervals, comping for Lovano with chords that are alternately tickling and tough.

Holland and Foster are responsive to every nuance, and they create a few of their own (just listen to Holland step in and out of "walking" fours with Scofield’s solo on the title track, or to Foster making the sound bigger with his quiet arsenal of cross-rhythms over a heartbeat). Favorite tunes: Scofield’s "Right About Now," with its sweet, ruminative theme and bumptious, comic march of a bridge, and Lovano’s "New Amsterdam," which seems to have Ornette on its mind from Foster’s first press roll until the last obsessive locked-in groove that’s right out of Dancing in Your Head.

BY JON GARELICK

Issue Date: February 20 - 27, 2003
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