JOHN SCOFIELD QUARTET: ROUGH HOUSE

Second official Scofield solo album, recorded in the fall of 78 in southern Germany, Rough House is more of an electrified jazz album, despite some steaming jazz-rock moments. With the line-up presented as your "normal" quartet (guits & keys), with the future faithful Nussbaum on drums, RH is a typical late 70's jazz/fusion album, dominated by Scofield's guitar, much reminiscent of Coryell, Catherine and Metheny of that era, a far cry from the rockier a steamier Jeff Beck or Gary Boyle, both much more in the "rock" scene. Nevertheless, Scofield's sonic realm is quite pleasant to progheads, even if a bit removed from the site's main core of "prog".

Beit the opening 9-mins+ title track or its shorter Alster Fields follow-up, the mood is on the fast, speedy but ultimately rather-soft mode, Galper's piano giving some excellent answers to Scofield's call for responses. Songwriting-wise, with all but one track being from Scofield himself, we're definitely not in the adventurous mode, but in a fairly standard and heard- elsewhere musical territory. Aileron is a bit more energetic, but it soon finds its alter-ego in the calm/yawning flipside opener Slow Elvin. Thealbum's highlight is the closing (and infortunately shortest) Air Pakistan, which will find an extended place in the final version of the upcoming Live album. Hardly essential for progheads (or even fusionheads), Scofield's general discography is like Abercrombie: good consolidating blocks, but certainly not founding cornerstones. If you must have only one Scofield album, this is second choice to the following Live album.