John Scofield walks into to Cohen Auditorium wearing a green nylon windbreaker and a tan ski cap, which he pulls off to reveal his balding scalp. Thin-framed eyeglasses adorn his stoic face, as does a neatly trimmed goatee. If you saw him in public, you might mistake him for an everyday middle-aged commuter if it weren't for the gig bag strapped to his back.
At 49 years old, John Scofield is far too versatile to be your ordinary jazz guitarist. Since studying at Berklee, he has experimented with just about every style of jazz throughout his career, from the straightforward jazz on his latest recording, Works For Me, to the electronic jazz-rock hybrid he performed Sunday night in Cohen.
"I feel like it's been diverse," he said. "But it's all in the jazz idiom."
"Diverse" is a barely adequate adjective for Scofield's accomplishments. Over the past three decades, he's played with everyone from Miles Davis to underground funksters Soulive, mastering jazz guitar, churning out countless hours of live funk, and even dabbling in rock. In fact, Scofield has two touring bands of his own. "With this band that's playing [at Tufts], it's more kind of jazz-rock and elements of that. With other projects it's straight-ahead jazz," he said.
Currently, his efforts lie with writing and recording with his electronic/rock band. "Some people are like, 'wait a minute, it's a bunch of different styles' - which it is - but to me it makes perfect sense."
The samples and effects Scofield's band brought to Tufts didn't make sense to jazz purists in the audience, who criticized him for pandering to the college crowd. However, Scofield will be back in Boston soon with his straight-jazz lineup. "I have another band that I'm bringing out to play the music from Works For Me, the new album. We're gonna be in Boston, too, at the Regattabar in May. So I've got two bands, each one playing half a different kind of music... and they cross over a little bit."
Few Tufts students probably recognize that Scofield is a Bostonian at heart. Born in Dayton, Ohio, he was raised in Connecticut and went on to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music.
"I lived here for five years in Boston, first with Berklee, and then just hangin' out in Somerville, actually, not far from here. I played a lot around here, made all my early connections... Pat Metheney... me and Joe Lavano, and a bunch of other musicians were up here at the same time." Scofield drops the names of these and other greatly talented musicians as if they were merely neighbors of his - and without so much as a drop of pompousness.
Scofield goes on to talk about the jazz scene in Boston today, which is a mere shadow of what it was when he was attending Berklee. "My hangouts are gone. You know, it was 30 years ago that I lived here. I moved away in '74. The Jazz Workshop was this great club where I heard Miles and all the greats."
In fact, only one of Scofield's favorite hangouts is still open today. "I think there's a club called Wally's that's still here on Mass Ave. in Roxbury, but other than that, all the jazz joints are gone."
Still, he holds that as long as there are young jazz fans - like those that came to Cohen on Sunday night - the music will continue to thrive.
"It doesn't matter where you are, it's who you are," he said, then paused to laugh at his own false pretension. "Maybe that's not right, but it sounded good."
