SCOTT FIELDS ...

... was born in Chicago in the early 1950s. As a teenager, he played guitar, sang and wrote songs for rock and blues bands. In 1969, Fields formed the Trio ‘Life Rhythms’ (which was certainly the loudest Avant-Jazz Group in Chicago at the time). It performed most often at Rock Venues and Festivals - and, in addition to guitar, in this Group Fields played tenor and soprano saxophone, flute, clarinet and ‘sundry percussion’.
Soon after that time, however, he stopped performing. In 1989, Fields began working as a musician again. Since then, Fields has toured throughout North America, Europe and Asia. His ensembles and collaborations have included (among others) Marilyn Crispell, Hamid Drake, Michael Formanek, Elliott Sharp, John Hollenbeck, Rob Mazurek, Myra Melford, Joseph Jarman and Jeff Parker.
Fields has released 19 CDs as a leader or co-leader and has been a sideman on many other recordings. He has been commissioned by the Milwaukee Improvisers Orchestra, Kanopy Dance, Li Chiao-Ping Dance, Douglas Rosenburg, the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, Yoshiko Kanda, Arno Oehri and the Köln Musiktriennale.

Current Programs:

I.
SCOTT FIELDS FREETET
Bitter Love Songs

AVAILABLE AS SPECIAL GUEST:
MATTHIAS SCHUBERT - TENOR SAXOPHONE

The SCOTT FIELDS FREETET was inspired by the classic free-jazz groups of the 1960s, but with a twist. Like Ornette Coleman’s 1960s jazz-based, but chord-free quartets and trios, the Freetet works within a head-solos-interludes-solos-head structure. The twist is in the heads themselves.
Unlike classic free jazz, which was usually in 4/4 or jazz waltz time, The Freetet’s book is crammed full of shifting, complex and compound time signatures, adding and dropping fractional beats, to give the music a quirky, jerky character, while still maintaining a jazz feel and drive.
Fields, Gramss and Lillinger dig deep into their jazz roots. Fields abandons his collection of sound-modification hardware to let a clean jazz tone sing out. Gramss and Lillinger strip their sound arsenals to the fundamental core. The result is eccentric, propulsive, engaging free jazz.

“When Fields and guitarist Jeff Parker convened a double-trio for Dénouement, the level of interplay from the ‘paired Freetets’ astounded this writer. On Bitter Love Songs, multiplying the equation is unnecessary, as there’s so much music available here.”

CLIFFORD ALLEN - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

MP3-Soundfiles: SCOTT FIELDS FREETET - Bitter Love Songs

II.
SHARP & FIELDS
Scharfefelder

Listening closely to the duo of Elliott Sharp and Scott Fields one can hear a compact history of modern composition and improvisation. Although the duo has a sound all its own, under the surface you can sense traces of ’New Music’, minimalism, free jazz, and blues. For this duo, the two composer-instrumentalists focuses on the interactions of two acoustic guitars, the pure unprocessed sound of metal strings shaking wood.
This is intimate music. The CD was recorded live to tape in a small room with the two musicians facing each other. Both of the musicians have long been interested in composition, improvisation, and borders between them.
That’s why, without discussing ‘rules’ for the project, Sharp and Fields each packed their compositions for the duo with a mixture or conventional notation, graphic notation, and structures for improvisation.

COMPOSER, MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST AND SOUND-ARTIST ELLIOTT SHARP HAS CENTRAL TO THE EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC SCENE IN NEW YORK CITY FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS. HE HAS RELEASED MORE THAN 200 RECORDINGS SPANNING THE MUSICAL SPECTRUM.
HE PIONEERED WAYS OF APPLYING FRACTAL GEOMETRY, CHAOS THEORY AND GENETIC METAPHORS TO MUSICAL COMPOSITION AND INTERACTION AS WELL AS PIONEERING USE OF COMPUTERS IN LIVE IMPROVISATION.
HIS COMPOSITIONS HAVE BEEN PERFORMED BY THE RADIOSINFONIE FRANKFURT, ENSEMBLE MODERN, ENSEMBLE RESONANZ, KRONOS QUARTET AND ZEITKRATZER. HIS ‘QUARKS SWIM FREE’ PREMIERED AT THE VENICE BIENNALE IN SEPTEMBER 2003 AND HIS CHAMBER OPERA ‘EMPYRE’ PREMIERED AT THE 2006 BIENNALE.

MP3-Soundfiles: SHARP & FIELDS - Scharfefelder

III.
PARKER & FIELDS
Song Songs Song

Jeff Parker and Scott Fields have worked together since 1997 and they formed the Parker-Fields duo in 2002. Both compose material for the duo, which sits squarely in the avant-jazz camp. The duo has performed throughout the United States. Their first CD, 'Song Songs Song', is on the Chicago label Delmark. The guitarists are preparing material for their second release, which is scheduled for 2009.

JEFF PARKER IS BEST KNOWN AS A MEMBER OF THE POST-ROCK GROUP ‘TORTOISE’, THE GROOVE-BASED, MILES DAVIS-INFLUENCED GROUP ‘ISOTOPE 217’ AND THE POST-BOP JAZZ GROUP ‘THE CHICAGO UNDERGROUND ORCHESTRA’.
PARKER IS A FULL-TIME MEMBER OF “CHICAGO’S ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF CREATIVE MUSICIANS” (WHOSE MEMBERS INCLUDE ANTHONY BRAXTON AND THE ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO).
HE HAS PLAYED IN A NUMBER OF JAZZ AND POST-ROCK GROUPS AS WELL, INCLUDING THE NEW HORIZONS ENSEMBLE, JOSHUA REDMAN’S ELASTIC BAND, THE NICOLAS PAYTON QUARTET, BRIAN BLADE’S FELLOWSHIP AND THE FRED ANDERSON QUARTET.

MP3-Soundfiles: PARKER & FIELDS - Song Songs Song

IV.
SCOTT FIELDS ENSEMBLE
The Beckett Project

The Beckett music is the second project in which Fields sets a playwrights words to music (the first was ‘Mamet’, on the Chicago label Delmark).
For these projects the feel is somewhere between Free Jazz and New Music. In these ‘theatrical’ projects, the dialog is set literally, with a pitch and rhythm for each syllable. The Samuel Beckett plays are short enough so that every word can be heard as a corresponding pitch and rhythm.
The music is also largely programmatic in that the textures are meant to remind the listener of the mood of the plays, the characters actions, and the settings.

In live performance the ensemble performs compositions from the 2007 ‘Clean-Feed’-BECKETT-CD and other pieces from the Fields catalogue. This material provide a universe in which the musicians draw on their entire musical bag of tricks.

“Although conceptual allusions to literature might suggest haughty pretension, Beckett is actually Fields’ most varied and swinging record in years. Even at their most abstract, these are engaging compositions, bolstered by zealous group interaction, rich harmonic ingenuity and stunning dynamic range. Like the work of its dedicatee, one listen to this album won’t do it justice.”

TROY COLLINS - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

“Whatever, when you think Beckett you don’t automatically think of elegant and intricately crafted modern chamber jazz, but that’s precisely what guitarist Scott Fields offers us here on this magnificent quartet outing. (...) The playing of all four musicians throughout is exemplary, the scores cunningly crafted and intriguing to the point of being frustrating (and if that isn’t Beckettian, I don’t know what is) and the recording superb. What more could you ask for? A sequel, perhaps.”

DAN WARBURTON - PARIS TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE

MP3-Soundfiles: SCOTT FIELDS ENSEMBLE - Beckett