Magic number.

As of tonight, I have a new theory as to why John Scofield makes his best intense-guitarist faces not during his own solos, but during those of his bandmates. Granted, it's not based on a lot of empirical data, but the grimaces, startled looks and other choice expressions that played across Scofield's face as he accompanied Steve Swallow's bass guitar solo on "In 6" tonight at the Blue Note made me think that the guitarist was deeply contemplating every available option in order to find precisely the right gesture to play off whatever Swallow was offering, and it showed. It also paid off: Everything Scofield did seemed to complement his bassist's sentiments perfectly.

By contrast, Scofield's face during his own solos is more of a fixed grimace with its ends curled upward. It might be a cliche to say so, but it often seems as if the music is actually playing the guitarist rather than the other way around: Even in his liveliest tunes, Scofield projects mellow assurance.

Most of the set by Scofield's Real Jazz Trio, which is completed by drummer Bill Stewart, was devoted to new material, some of it apparently never played before tonight. The show opened with "Trio Blues," which was exactly what the name suggests: a fast, tricky 12-bar blues. Swallow hunched over in deep concentration, his face pinched and his long, spidery fingers flicking back and forth across his strings constantly. Stewart's drumming was crisp and immaculate; his left hand was hyperactive and his right foot was possessed by Roy Haynes, while the other two limbs kept precision time.

On the trio's live album, EnRoute (which was recorded at this club), Scofield rejected most of his jam-band loops and pedals. This time, he carefully introduced a few of them in tunes such as the hard-edged strut, "Green Tea." The previously mentioned "In 6" featured a gently rippling, off-kilter melody. "Strangeness in the Night" shuffled back and forth between a stolid, deliberate slow-drag march and a loosely swinging reverie that climaxed in a burst of energy akin to those of the mid-'60s Coltrane quartet; at times, Scofield's octaves and Swallow's lines were so closely aligned as to suggest one massive überguitar.

Following a tricky, effects-laden solo guitar introduction that bubbled and skipped like a scratched CD, "Down Deep" relaxed into a rustic melody that might have been borrowed from some obscure Scottish folk ballad. A burning cover of "Budo" confirmed the trio's claim to its name. After a break to downtune the guitars, Scofield's trio closed the set with "Row Pet Solo" (an anagram, maybe?), in which a lurching, dinosaur-rock opening riff gave way to a breezy melody that kept reminding me of a Funkadelic tune I've yet to recall. This closer offered Scofield's flashiest playing of the evening.

While there's no denying that Scofield's trio is an excellent band that has no problem sustaining interest and excitement, there was admittedly still a part of me that longed for a good horn player as a foil -- for example, Joe Lovano, who played with Scofield and Stewart in the guitarist's excellent early-'90s quartet. That thought wasn't entirely coincidental, since my next destination was the Village Vanguard, where the saxophonist was playing with drummer Paul Motian and guitarist Bill Frisell in a trio rightly lauded as one of jazz's elite units for more than 20 years. I'd originally planned to catch the trio's second set, but Scofield ended so punctually that I was also able to catch practically all of Motian's first set, save for the two opening tunes: "Cambodia," a new original slated for the trio's next ECM disc (due in January) and Monk's "Misterioso," I learned later.

I descended the stairs to a cacophony of noisy guitar splatter, Frisell's lines conjuring a vaguely Monkish integrity despite the chaos. As the guitarist ended, Lovano jumped in with a warm gush of free-flowing melody, the drummer prodding him gently with the most skeletal of rhythms. The head to Motian's "Jack of Clubs" suddenly emerged from the ether.

Over the years, this band has grown ever more confident even as its performances have atomized into the most tenuous of constructs. "Time and Time Again," the title track of the upcoming disc, opened with a mild flutter of saxophone, Motian's brushwork and long, glistening notes from Frisell. The leader quietly urged the guitarist through a lengthy, melancholy solo; when Lovano rejoined the group, it seemed as if he'd been missing for ages. The three players coalesced into one of Motian's patented broken-carousel melodies.

There's virtually no way to apply conventional analysis to what this trio makes of standards like "I Wish I Knew," which followed. Their performances are essentially a three-way gush of melody, colored by all manner of subtle harmonic suggestions and rhythmic implications. It's about as easy to pin their music down as it is to stop a river with cupped hands. Here, Lovano gently caressed the melody, while Frisell and Motian surrounded him with ghostly emanations.

Lovano's "Party Line," also slated for the new disc, opened with a tawny, stepwise melody, repeated two-note cells sounding like bugle calls or battle cries. Motian's freest drumming was a reminder that this veteran player has become as wily a radical as the firebrands of the '60s, yet his abstractions are always tempered with a lyricism entirely suited to this material. What's more, he can always stop on a dime and provide rock-solid swing, as he did here behind a unison statement from his bandmates.

Behind Frisell's lean rhapsody in "This Nearly Was Mine," Motian turned again to his brushes, offering not the standard librarian shush but rather the rustle of wind through dry leaves, the flutter of a moth's wings as it recklessly circles the porch light under which a last goodbye is spoken. The set ended with Motian's frequent set closer, "Drum Music" (another selection from Jack of Clubs, a 1984 quintet date). The players seemed to be pushing a melody slowly up a hill, but every so often it rolled backward on them at twice the speed. If that's a metaphor for the struggle of creativity, it's a battle this seasoned trio is well equipped to wage.

Playlist:

Dave Douglas - Meaning and Mystery (Greenleaf)

Myra Melford's Be Bread - The Image of Your Body (Cryptogramophone)

Willie Nelson - Songbird (Lost Highway; due Oct. 31)

Miles Davis - Decoy (Columbia)

Paul Motian, Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano - It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago and I Have the Room Above Her (ECM)

Comments

[Guy]

Out of curiosity, how did you find out the titles for the tracks from the new disc?

[Steve Smith]

For the Motian album, you mean? I asked Motian for a set list at the end of the night. That's how I knew what I'd missed, too.