Scott Fields (born September 30, 1960 in Chicago, Illinois) is a guitarist, composer, and bandleader. He is best known for blending music that is composed with music that is written and for his modular pieces (see ''48 Motives'', ''96 Gestures'', ''OZZO'', and ''Seven Deserts''). He works primarily in

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Orig ...

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

, and

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...

Biography

Fields was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He started as a self-taught rock musician but soon was influenced by the musicians of the Association for the Advancement for Creative Musicians ( AACM), which was active in the Hyde Park neighborhood in which he grew up. Later he studied

classical guitar The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor o ...

, jazz guitar, music composition, and

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

. In late 1973 Fields co-founded the

trio Life Rhythms. When the group disbanded two years later, he played sporadically but soon was institutionalized for an extended period. He quit music almost entirely until 1989. Since then he has performed and composed actively. His ensembles and partnerships have included such musicians as

Marilyn Crispell Marilyn Crispell (born March 30, 1947) is an American jazz pianist and composer. Scott Yanow described her as "a powerful player... who has her own way of using space... She is near the top of her field." Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrot ...

Hamid Drake Hamid Drake (born August 3, 1955) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and Afr ...

, John Hollenbeck,

Joseph Jarman Joseph Jarman (September 14, 1937 – January 9, 2019) was an American jazz musician, composer, poet, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the ...

Myra Melford Myra Melford (born January 5, 1957) is an American avant-garde jazz pianist and composer. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' as an "explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can m ...

, Jeff Parker, and

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released ...

Discography

* ''Fugu'' (Geode, 1995) * ''48 Motives January 11, 1996'' (Cadence, 1996) * ''Disaster at Sea An Opera Seria'' (Music & Arts, 1996) * ''Five Frozen Eggs'' (Music & Arts, 1997) * ''Sonotropism'' with Stephen Dembski (Music & Arts, 1997) * ''Denouement'' (Geode, 1999) * ''Hornets Collage'' with Francois Houle (Nuscope, 2000) * ''This That'' (Accretions, 2001) * ''Mamet'' (Delmark, 2001) * ''96 Gestures'' (CRI, 2001) * ''From the Diary of Dog Drexel'' (Rossbin 2002) * ''Song Songs Song'' with Jeff Parker (Delmark, 2004) * ''Christangelfox'' (482 Music, 2004) * ''Beckett'' (Clean Feed, 2007) * ''We Were the Phliks'' (

RogueArt RogueArt (also written Rogueart and Rogue Art) is a French independent record label based in Paris. It was founded by record producer Michel Dorbon in 2005 and specialises in jazz and improvised music. History RogueArt was founded by record p ...

, 2007) * ''Drawings'' (Creative Sources, 2008) * ''Music for the Radio Program This American Life'' (Neos, 2008) * ''Scharfefelder'' with

(Clean Feed, 2008) * ''Bitter Love Songs'' (Clean Feed, 2008) * ''Samuel'' (New World, 2009) * ''What We Talk'' with Stephan Rath (Neos, 2010) * ''Afiadacampos'' with Elliott Sharp (Neos, 2010) * ''Frail Lumber'' (Not Two, 2011) * ''Minaret Minuets'' with Matthias Schubert (Clean Feed, 2011) * ''Everything Is in the Instructions'' with Jeffrey Lependorf (Ayler, 2013) * ''Kintsugi'' (Between the Lines, 2013) * ''Mostly Stick'' (Between the Lines, 2014) * ''Haydn'' (Between the Lines, 2014) * ''Akra-Kampoj'' with Elliott Sharp (New Atlantis, 2015) * ''Journeys Have Destinations of Which the Traveler Is Unaware'' with Jeffrey Lependorf (Albany, 2015) * ''Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame'' (New Atlantis, 2015) * ''Barclay'' (Ayler, 2018) * ''Seven Deserts'' (New World, 2020)

References

External links

Scott Fields website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fields, Scott 1956 births Living people American jazz guitarists Cadence Jazz Records artists Jewish American musicians Clean Feed Records Jewish jazz musicians Guitarists from Chicago 20th-century American guitarists Jazz musicians from Illinois Clean Feed Records artists Music & Arts artists RogueArt artists 21st-century American Jews