Jazz guitarist John Scofield to perform at Kilbourn Hall 

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John Scofield lived in New York City for years, playing jazz guitar in clubs when he wasn’t on the road.

Early in his career, he played with Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Charles Mingus. He’s been with Mavis Staples and Phil Lesh and Friends.

In jazz circles, he’s what they call a “road dog.”

Now Scofield lives an hour north of the city in Westchester County. He hasn’t strayed far, he insists.

“I’m only an hour out of Manhattan, if the traffic’s good,” he says.

And does it really matter where he’s sitting, guitar in hands?

“I don’t know if I get inspiration for music from, I mean direct inspiration for music, from my surroundings,” Scofield says. “I mean, sure, when I close my eyes and play, it kind of doesn’t matter if I’m in a beautiful place or not.

“Feeling good and positive is always a good thing for creativity.”

Although, at this stage in his career and his life, the 71-year-old Scofield concedes: “I like the quiet more.”

So close your eyes, if you like, when Scofield plays a 7:30 p.m. Saturday show at Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music. Scofield doesn’t need to see the place; he’s played the room before, at the Rochester International Jazz Festival.

The setting doesn’t matter. It is the music that matters.

“Music inspires me, and music and creative efforts by other people inspires me to want to do something, and to think about different angles on stuff,” he says. “Not just music, but all kinds of creativity, which is all around us all the time. And now, we have access to so much.”

We can credit the internet for that — all arts are at our fingertips. Is that a good or bad thing? Would Michelangelo have set aside three years of his life to create his David if he were just playing Wordle on his phone?

“I appreciate the other fine arts,” Scofield says. “Writing and books and movies, I read a lot.”

What’s he reading now? Something to distract himself from his own world? Not really. It’s a biography on jazz saxophone icon Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, and his place in the history of jazz.

“As a music fan, which I think all musicians are first, you know before, they’re an instrumentalist, or before they’re performers, or artists, they’re fans,” Scofield says. “So I still am.”

That storyteller’s lens has been turned on Scofield as well. “Inside Scofield” is a new documentary on Scofield by a Berlin filmmaker, Joerg Steineck. Steineck’s work seems to drift from documentary to mockumentary to fiction. “Inside Scofield” pretty much sticks to Scofield’s real story.

“He’s a filmmaker, he knows what he’s doing,” Scofield says. “I didn’t learn anything from the movie other than my voice sure sounds different when you hear it coming out from somewhere else. I’m used to hearing my guitar, you know, recorded. But I’m not used to hearing my speaking voice.”

For the record, Scofield’s speaking voice is a relaxed, slightly worn, thoughtful tone. He does not seem given to idle chatter.

“That is really a result, I think, of being a jazz artist who’s been around a while,” he says.

Scofield doesn’t have to introduce his career. It’s already well-established.

“I’ve had 46 years, whatever it is, 48 years, of actually making records, my own albums,” he says.

Fifty-three albums, by my count. “You do all of your originals, and you keep writing, but it’s fun to play other people’s music,” Scofield says. “So I pick things that are inspiring.”

For Saturday’s show at Kilbourn, Scofield will be playing solo. His latest release, simply titled “John Scofield,” is his first solo album. It came out of the pandemic, “being at home and not playing with other musicians for a while,” he says. Adding guitar loops to his toolbox, he says, “changed everything.”

He does Thelonious Monk and jazz standards, but also turns Ray Charles, The Beatles and Bob Dylan into jazz. He’s covered the alternative rock band Soul Coughing. He plays in trios and quartets, sometimes with horns, and even jumped aboard Medeski Martin & Wood for an album.

There are no limits here. Scofield has recorded a version of The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” A superior version, Scofield apparently believes. “We’re jazz guys, we have more notes that we access.”

Does Keith Richards know this?

“He knows.”

Jeff Spevak is an arts editor. He can be reached at [email protected].