Uberjam

1	Acidhead 6:33
2	Ideofunk 4:43
3	Jungle Fiction 5:38
4	I Brake 4 Monster Booty 4:02
5	Animal Farm 5:38
6	Off Spring 6:28
7	Tomorrow Land 3:59
8	Überjam 6:52
9	Polo Towers 5:29
10	Snap Crackle Pop 6:03
11	Lucky for Her 3:15

Barnes & Noble

Recorded by his working band after several months on the road, John Scofield's Uberjam is clearly targeted to young hipsters whose preferred mode of listening involves allowing the groove to possess their bodies from head to toe. The cover art -- a winking, lotus-twisted Scofield-Buddha with a guitar -- implies that the guitarist is channeling his inner '60s; think of the supersonic beats of late-'60s James Brown and the trippy-mellow feel of the Grateful Dead for a sense of the album's aura, one reinforced by the sometime presence of acid-soul king Karl Denson on flute and saxophone. The grooves, however, are fully grounded in the hip-hop vernacular of the here-and-now. Ever the functional improviser, Scofield's expressive, B. B. King-rooted sound shines through in any context he chooses to place it, and he allows his personnel -- brainy rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick, beatmeisters Jesse Murphy and Adam Deitch, and five tracks worth of skronk-intellectual keyboardist John Medeski -- to define the invigorating flow, conjuring endless streams of melody. Ted Panken

All Music Guide

In the jazz world, there are artists who are consistent but predictable and artists who are unpredictable but inconsistent. John Scofield, meanwhile, is an impressive example of a jazzman who is both unpredictable and consistent. You never know what the risk-taking guitarist will do from one album to the next, but he rarely provides an album that is flat-out disappointing. Überjam is a major departure from 2000's Works for Me, the Verve date that preceded it. While Works for Me is essentially a straight-ahead post-bop outing and employs acoustic-oriented players, like pianist Brad Mehldau and bassist Christian McBride, Überjam is pure, unadulterated fusion. This album always has a jazz mentality -- Überjam is as spontaneous, free-spirited, and uninhibited as any bop session that was recorded in Rudy Van Gelder's studio in the '50s -- but on Überjam, having a jazz mentality doesn't mean excluding elements of funk, rock, and, at times, hip-hop and club music. To those who fancy themselves jazz purists, the phrase "pure, unadulterated fusion" will sound like an oxymoron; if jazz is fused, how can it be real, authentic jazz? But then, George Duke hit the nail on the head when he asserted that jazz was always fusion; even back in the days of Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver, jazz had a variety of influences. It simply became more fused when Miles Davis recorded Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way in the late '60s. And speaking of Davis, much of Überjam reflects Scofield's years with that restless trumpeter. Like many of Davis' fusion efforts, Überjam has no problem being cerebral and funky at the same time. The material tends to be abstract and intellectual, but not at the expense of grit. Überjam is yet another excellent album from an improviser who refuses to be predictable. Alex Henderson

Billboard

Scofield's latest groove-fest hits home in all the right places, from the feel-good rhythms that anchor the music to the solid jazz improvisations and appealing compositions at the heart of this funky excursion.