Pop and Jazz Reviews : Scofield Group Intense, Inventive

John Scofield’s group is a kind of jazz variation on the Juilliard String Quartet. Like that venerable model, the ensemble the guitarist brought to the Strand on Thursday played with a strikingly symbiotic interconnection of musical elements.

For most of the set, Scofield and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano were poised at opposite ends of the stage, tossing sudden bursts of sound and long, loping lines back and forth at each other. The balding Scofield, the neck of his guitar held high, was a study in angular, electric intensity. In contrast, the more laid-back Lovano had the benign look of a bearded Buddha in a Miami Beach shirt.

Situated between the two principals, bassist Dennis Irwin and drummer Bill Stewart played the roles of creative equals, anticipating, shifting and adjusting their rhythms to meet the multilevel improvisational demands of the soloists.

Scofield’s choruses--especially on two as-yet-unnamed originals and a boppish rhythm tune--were constantly surprising, leaping helter-skelter from one idea to another with a random energy reminiscent of a contemporary Pee Wee Russell. Lovano took a while to get his flow going, but was at peak form in the last third of the program, playing with the kind of exuberant inventiveness typical of Sonny Rollins’ finest work.

And both musicians’ soloing was always within the context of the ensemble--a group effort in the highest tradition of collective jazz playing.