John Scofield left Berklee College of Music before finishing his degree because the phone rang with offers from jazz legends. This deep dive traces how a kid born in Dayton, Ohio and raised in Wilton, Connecticut went from recording with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan in 1974 to surviving the bandstands of Billy Cobham, Charles Mingus, and Gary Burton, then landing a three-and-a-half-year run in Miles Davis's electric band in 1982, where he contributed original tunes to Star People, Decoy, and You're Under Arrest.

The episode unpacks the central paradox of his career: a guitarist who bounced from acoustic jazz supergroups with Joe Lovano, Charlie Haden, and Jack DeJohnette to funk records with Eddie Harris and Idris Muhammad, jam-band sessions with Medeski Martin and Wood and Phil Lesh, drum-and-bass on Uber Jam, and a symphonic orchestratio ...