Tracing the career of 55-year-old guitarist John Scofield is like taking a cruise through jazz history since the mid-1970s. Born in Ohio, Scofield attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston before landing his first major gig with legendary saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and trumpeter Chet Baker. He went on to work with the Billy Cobham-George Duke Band, and then recorded with jazz icon Charles Mingus in 1977. He launched his career as a bandleader the following year. Scofield toured and recorded with Miles Davis for several years in the early 1980s, sealing his reputation as an established jazz superstar. Since then, Scofield has gigged and recorded with countless artists hailing from numerous genres, including jam acts like Phil Lesh and Government Mule, and jazz veterans like Jack DeJohnette and Herbie Hancock. Last year, he released recordings with The Trio Beyond and Medeski Martin & Wood. Scofield released his latest studio recording, “This Meets That,” in September, with a trio including Steve Swallow on bass and Bill Stewart on drums, as well as a four-piece horn section. He has 16 tour dates scheduled this month, and he will be at The Stone Church in Newmarket on Sunday, Oct. 7. The Wire recently caught up with Scofield to talk about the new album, the tour and the art of jazz guitar.

You released “This Meets That” under a new label (Emarcy). Does this represent a major transition in your career?

Well, you know, to tell you the truth, I’ve been on four or five labels in my career, you know? And the music’s still the music regardless of which record company puts it out. It’s a nice label, Emarcy. It’s kind of related to the Verve label that I was on. It’s some guys from Universal that have started up a new jazz label under the Universal umbrella, and I like them a lot. But, to tell you the truth, they pretty much leave me alone and let me do my thing. That’s the way I like it.

How does the music on “This Meets That” differ from some of your past work?

I think on this record we were actually able to do all the kinds of music that I like to do on a gig, but on a CD. There are some tunes that are groove oriented, other things that are more jazz, there are some ballads and even some free playing. I think it all kind of worked together with the way the trio plays, and having the horns just added a really high-class sheen to it.

Over the years, you’ve worked with so many different artists, from Miles Davis back in the day to Medeski Martin & Wood and The Trio Beyond last year. You’ve also done a recording with Phil Lesh and Friends—just a diverse array of artists. Does it stimulate the creative process for you to work with so many different talented musicians?

Oh, without a doubt. I mean, I think collaboration is the heart of creative music, really. The stuff I want to do, anyway, gets done when I’m playing with other people and we feed off of each other. The last couple years have been, in a way, my busiest with those projects you mentioned. And it’s been great that they’re very diverse. People say, “How are you able to switch gears to do all this stuff?” And I’m not sure how I do it, but I know that each one informs the other in a strange way. I’ll bring something from playing jam band music, Grateful Dead tunes, to The Trio Beyond. I just learn more and seem to expand my vocabulary more by playing with these different organizations.

You’ve also worked with some of the other top guitar innovators of contemporary jazz, including Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell, who appears on the new CD. Does working with other innovative guitarists help you continue to grow and evolve as a guitar player?

Yes, for sure. Any really good guitar player usually gives me insight into how to play the instrument. And it’s such a personal instrument. There are so many different ways to play the guitar, when you think about it. It may be the most diverse instrument on the planet right now, when you think of, sonically, the difference between Paco de Lucia and Jimi Hendrix and everyone in between. Playing with guys like Metheny and Frisell is just a treat, and it makes you love the guitar even more.

You’ve also covered a wide variety of music. You did a Ray Charles cover album in 2005. I really liked your cover of (John Lennon’s) “Julia” on “Out Louder” (with Medeski Martin and Wood). And, on the new disc, you cover (The Rolling Stones’) “Satisfaction” and “House of the Rising Sun.” What makes you decide to cover a particular song or musician, and how do you adapt that song to make it uniquely yours?

I only do it if it feels really natural, you know? Because there are a lot of songs that you love or recordings that you love that don’t need to be done again or couldn’t be done as well. They shouldn’t be adapted. But then there are other things, and it usually ends up with me just sitting around, fooling around with the guitar, and I end up playing that song, the little bit that I can remember of that song before I really learn it. In the case of “Julia,” my wife said, “I hear you playing that.” And I said, “Oh, I remember that song.” And then I listened to it again and realized that there was this nice chord progression that we could improvise on, and that has a lot to do with it. If it sets up something that makes you want to improvise, then it works in this kind of music, because improvisation is key to what I do in every performance.

You also mentioned on the Web site that “Satisfaction” and “House of the Rising Sun” were two of the first songs you learned how to play on guitar.

Yeah, they were.

You started playing at a very young age. Back then, did you primarily listen to rock music?

Well, when I was 11, yeah. Eleven, 12 and 13, that’s what I heard, the music on the radio, and I was just learning the chords to songs. And pretty quickly I got into blues, as an extension of listening to groups like The Rolling Stones, and started to learn about the different blues styles. B.B. King became my favorite guitar player back in the ’60s, when there was a blues revival. And that led me to jazz when I was probably 17. I became a jazz fan, and, when I was 16 or 17, I decided, “Well, this is what I want to do.” 

How did you manage to immerse yourself in that scene to the extent that you got in with guys like Miles and Mingus?

Well, I came from a small town in Connecticut and there was very little jazz there. But, after high school, I went to Boston to the Berklee School in 1970 and just started hanging out with other likeminded kids that were into jazz, and there were some really good young players there. They kicked my ass, so to speak, and the teachers. (Vibraphonist) Gary Burton came to teach there, and he was really a huge influence and a real mentor to me, and I took off from there. A great drummer who was teaching there, Alan Dawson, recommended me to Gerry Mulligan, and I started playing with him, and then other gigs came. You meet other musicians who are like you but a little bit better and happen to know somebody that’s better than them, and pretty soon, if you’re any good and you really want to do it, you make yourself available and you can work in somebody’s band.

Jazz has never been a popular musical form among mainstream audiences, but there are a handful of active musicians, yourself and MMW included, who seem to transcend these genre barriers and attract fans of rock and funk and jam bands, as well as traditional jazz fans. Any thoughts on why your appeal is so pervasive?

I think that jazz-rock, in all its different shapes and forms since its inception in the late ’60s, has appealed to a wider audience. A lot of people, even though it’s jazz to them and a foreign kind of music, can appreciate what I’m doing on the guitar if they like the blues, especially.

We’ve talked about some of the covers you’ve done, but most of the songs on “This Meets That” are originals. After so many years of writing original tunes, do you find that the music still comes naturally to you?

Well, it’s not natural (laughs). You want to get a tune that sounds natural, but I find composition very time-consuming and, sometimes, difficult. It’s like going fishing: you come up with something good every once in a while, but you have to spend a lot of time in the boat, so to speak, fishing and trying to find something, and a lot of stuff doesn’t work. It’s not the immediate reward of sitting down and just playing jazz, even just by myself, or, especially, with other people.

There are songs on this disc that have their origins in country, rock, blues and jazz. Do you think there are any thematic elements to the music that provide a common thread throughout the album?

Yeah, I do. I think that this record is about the way we treat the music, we play the songs. Even when we’re playing “Satisfaction” and “House of the Rising Sun,” it all swings. The swing element is there in Bill Stewart’s drumming and in me and Steve’s guitar playing. So, we have this kind of way that we play tunes, these various ways that we approach the music. We have our bag of stuff that we do, and we did it on these tunes. The thematic thing that holds it together is that this trio has its own style of playing.

The label is different, but the core trio producing the music is one you’ve worked with in the past. Do you feel like you’ve reached a comfort zone with this group of musicians?

Oh yeah, I’ve played with these guys almost forever. They’re all real stylists, and, put us together, we’re three stylists, and put us together and we have our own sound. It’s different from any other trio, I think. It might not be better, but it’s different (laughs). And we’re good friends, so it just works when we’re together.

There’s a certain amount of guitar effects and so forth on this album, and that’s probably the kind of thing that wasn’t so available when you started out. Do you think it’s important to continually adapt to the times and use the technology that’s at your disposal?

I’m not sure if it’s important for everybody to do. Some people have to carry the tradition of older music, and, to a certain extent, I certainly do that, too. But it’s interesting to me, and I really enjoy expanding my sound through these devices. They’re just there. They’re at the music store. Everybody can buy them. There’s a million gizmos out there to change the sound of your guitar. Especially in the trio context when there’s just three of us—we’ll  have the horn section when we’re in New Hampshire—but you want sonic variety, so that’s one way to get it.

Are there any other new guitar players or jazz musicians that you’re particularly excited about these days?

Well, I love Chris Potter’s saxophone playing. He’s incredible to me. I love all the stuff (pianist) Brad Mehldau’s doing with his group. I listen to a lot old jazz, and a lot of old blues and rhythm and blues, and continue to find stuff that I’d never found before. There’s so much in our heritage of music and recorded music. There’s just tons, and a bunch of stuff keeps resurfacing.

You’ve been playing regularly throughout the year, and it looks like you’ve got a particularly busy October and November coming up. How have the shows been lately, and how are the new songs turning out in the live setting?

It’s been great. It’s been great to work with the horns. It’s sort of like, when we’re just playing with the trio with no horns, it’s great, but with the horn section, it’s like driving a Ferrari instead of a Volvo. You’re riding in style. It’s been a blast to have this chamber jazz concert-like … I just feel real classy. Normally I feel like I’m a bar band, but this feels like a concert hall (laughs). But we can get down, too. It’s the very beginning of touring with the horns, so we’re evolving every night.

The John Scofield Trio will be at The Stone Church on Sunday, Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $39 in advance, $42 day of show. You can purchase tickets at www.thestonechurch.com or by calling 603-659-6321.