COUNTRY JAZZ, PART 1
IN THIS LE SSON, we’ll examine John Scofield’s instrumental cover of “Mama Tried,” a tune written by country music legend Merle Haggard. This song can be found on Scofield’s 2016 Grammy Award–winning album Country for Old Men, a disc that features a collection of country classics performed in a jazz style.
The main goal in this lesson is twofold. First, we will check out Scofield’s interpretation of the melody and examine how he uses specific devices to sculpt a variation on the original. Second, we will investigate how he uses jazz vocabulary to imply sophisticated harmony over the basic chord progression in the solo. The lesson will be divided into two parts, and in this issue we will
