John Scofield on the opening night of London Jazz Festival

The opening night of the London Jazz Festival featured a band that has great personal associations for me, which is John Scofield's Piety Street band. I've known John for a long time since first working with him on a broadcast on Radio 3 almost 20 years ago (see the picture of us in the same Queen Elizabeth Hall dressing room he was using this time) and we've kept in touch ever since. His latest band involves musicians and sounds from New Orleans. Not only is the music a heady mix of gospel and down home blues, but the beat has that genuine New Orleans feel that I remember from spending many months in the city in the 1970s and 80s, working on books about the musical history of the Big Easy, as it's called. Among the musicians John has with him is the legendary bassist George Porter Jr. whom I heard often in earlier times with the Meters. On piano is English-born Jon Cleary, who used to work at the Maple Leaf, a well-known neighbourhood bar in the Crescent City, where I spent many a long hour in the 70s, lapping up this authentic style of playing, rooted in Professor Longhair, James Booker and Eddie Bo. There'll be a chance to hear John Scofield in conversation with Kevin Le Gendre on Jazz Line-Up on December 20th, with some great anecdotes about his years with Miles Davis. But as a taster of that programme, John spoke to me before the concert about the Piety Street band, and how it felt to be bringing this new project to London.

Listen to our conversation.