Well before John Scofield rose to prominence with Miles Davis on the albums Star People, Decoy, and You’re Under Arrest, he was making landmark guitar albums as a leader, mainly for Enja Records. The most enduring of these efforts showcased a gnarly, swinging trio with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Adam Nussbaum. It’s worth remembering that Swallow went on to produce not only 1985’s brilliant Still Warm, but every Scofield title in the Gramavision catalog (the guitarist would spend most of the 1990s with Blue Note and Verve). What’s also notable is how radically different Still Warm sounds from anything produced by the Enja trio. Even with Swallow playing electric bass, the Enja trio still sounded like acoustic jazz—and Still Warm is definitely not acoustic jazz. With Darryl Jones on bass and Omar Hakim on drums, Scofield leads a funky, virtuosic rhythm section that would soon find its way to Sting’s Dream of the Blue Turtles band. On keyboards, Don Grolnick brings a sonic conception and deadly, unpredictable soloing chops that perfectly suit the material, some of the strongest of Scofield’s career. (Grolnick was only 48 years old when he passed away in 1996; Still Warm is among his finest moments on record.) Still Warm’s driving uptempo tracks, “Techno” and “Protocol,” highlight Scofield’s barbed-wire tone and knotty improvisational approach. But what’s especially impressive about the group he leads on Still Warm is the way the players shift between harder-edged groove and moments of lyrical beauty, as on “High and Mighty.” The title track, meanwhile, is full of melodic warmth and dynamic contrast, while the closing chordal exploration “Gil B643” somehow makes oddly clashing harmonies sound soft and gentle. It all adds up to one of the best recordings by any of the Miles Davis alums of the period.