John Scofield goes country! With the help of drummer Bill Stewart, organist & pianist Larry Goldings, and bassist Steve Swallow, Scofield renders 12 classic country tunes through the prism of vigorous modern jazz. Country icons including Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and George Jones are hereby reinterpreted by Scofield by focusing strongly on the melody of each song, accentuating his playing with a noticeable twang, which lends the music the requisite bucolic sensibility.

One of the steps to becoming a band leader is to drop your inhibitions and find collaborators who play the music that you want to make. Though he has music in his blood carrying from two generations of bandleaders before him, drummer Greg Joseph initially found it difficult to grab the reigns of his own ensemble. It took finding the right voices in Larry Goldings’s Hammond organ and Steve Cardenas’s guitar to express his joyful music, which Joseph presents for the first time on Drop The Rock.