John Scofield, Cyrille Aimée and Lenny Pickett in Katonah IN his six years as the curator of Shades of Jazz, a summer concert series at the Katonah Museum of Art, the guitarist John Scofield has built a reputation for pushing programming boundaries - a reputation that stands to grow this year with his booking of two decidedly eclectic performers, the multiethnic singer Cyrille Aimée and the "Saturday Night Live" saxophonist Lenny Pickett. But it is Mr. Scofield's role as a player that may be generating more interest. Never having shared a stage with either Ms. Aimée, who will open the series with a duo performance on June 13, or Mr. Pickett, who will close it with the boisterous Borneo Horns on Aug. 15, he plans to sit in separately with each. And, in another first, he has scheduled his working trio for its long-awaited Shades of Jazz debut on Aug. 1. Performing before a hometown crowd - Mr. Scofield lives in Katonah - he expects the Aug. 1 concert to be an especially freewheeling affair. Bringing vast experience to the stage - including some 40 albums as a leader and a three-year stretch with Miles Davis's electric ensembles in the 1980s - Mr. Scofield has a wealth of material at hand. And, with his longtime sidemen Ben Street on bass and Bill Stewart on drums, he may draw from that material at will - calling tunes on the bandstand and shaping the set as it unfolds. When selecting material to cover, Mr. Scofield casts his stylistic net widely - "Try as hard as I might," he said, "I can't be a complete jazz purist" - but all the pieces he ultimately performs share at least one trait: a harmonic progression that facilitates improvisation. Whatever the idiom - and he is equally likely to tap a bebop classic, like Thelonious Monk's "Monk's Mood"; a big-band standard, like Bill Carey and Carl Fischer's "You've Changed"; a country tune, like Hank Williams's "Angel of Death"; or a Beatles number, like "Julia" - the chord changes "allow me to play melodically," he said. Just as Mr. Scofield picks others" tunes with an ear toward their improvisatory possibilities, so does he compose with the improviser in mind. At the same time, Mr. Scofield, whose career has been punctuated by sessions with stalwarts from the popular arena like Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead and the pop-and-bluesman John Mayer, employs in his writing the kind of hooks that linger in listeners" minds. "He writes melodies people can remember," Mr. Stewart said, "and yet they're super hip." Mr. Scofield's latest work should be part of the mix at the museum, where he is likely to dip into new pieces he has been developing since the winter. Grouped under the working title "The Return of Persephone," the pieces are, he said, "lyrical and positive," strong on melody without sacrificing the rhythmic grooves for which he is known. Like Mr. Scofield, Mr. Pickett is known for his grooves, both as the director of the Saturday Night Live Band and with the Borneo Horns, a saxophone trio augmented by other instruments, whose performance at Shades of Jazz will be a rare one. The group grew out of an association Mr. Pickett and the saxophonists Steve Elson and Stan Harrison developed in 1983 as the horn section for David Bowie during his "Let's Dance" phase. To this day, the group, which has incorporated the percussionist Leroy Clouden into its ranks, retains the spirit of that period. But 1980s dance music is hardly the group's only reference point; its sound is informed, Mr. Pickett said, by West African drum ensembles, 1960s soul exponents like Sly Stone and contemporary composers like Steve Reich. It has a raucous humor that recalls Mr. Pickett's television experience. And it has a contrapuntal quality that Mr. Pickett likens to Bach inventions, in which each voice - in the Horns" case, each saxophone line - has its own integrity but fits with the others to create an overall texture. "I look for a weave of sorts on the outside," he said, "where you can hear everything in context." While the Horns" arrangements are highly calibrated, its instrumentation, once limited to alto, tenor and baritone saxes, has expanded over the years to include clarinets, a melodica, an accordion and a six-string banjo, all played by the group's saxophonists. The addition of Mr. Scofield's guitar during the jam should widen the sonic palette further without disturbing the musical equilibrium, Mr. Pickett said. Interviewed separately, Mr. Scofield ventured that, given the musicians" shared sensibility, the collaboration would be an organic one. Mr. Scofield was also confident that he and Ms. Aimée would find common ground in their jam. Listening to taped samples of her work, he said, he "heard a certain similarity in our styles" - an affinity for the blues, familiarity with the bebop canon and a jazz aesthetic that went well beyond that canon. The two artists also share a Westchester constituency. Ms. Aimée attended Purchase College, and recruited former classmates as bandmates in two engagements at Birdland this year. The dates won Ms. Aimée critical praise for her ability to affect a variety of poses, from chanteuse to hip-hop practitioner - an ability, said the pianist Assaf Gleizner, who played with her at Birdland, that reflected extraordinary preparation and generosity of spirit. What facets of Ms. Aimée's musical personality will emerge at Katonah remains an open question. She claims French Gypsy and Dominican heritage, and said that she was as likely to draw on those traditions as any as she makes her way through her set, for which she will be joined by the French guitarist Michael Valeanu and Ms. Aimée's electronic loop pedal. Beyond that, she resisted committing herself to any direction for the set, though Mr. Scofield hardly seemed concerned. "From what I've heard, she's just got it, the rhythm and the melody," he said. She just moved me when I heard what she sang. Shades of Jazz with Cyrille Aimée on June 13, John Scofield Trio on Aug. 1 and Lenny Pickett with the Borneo Horns on Aug. 15. All shows at 6:30 p.m. at Katonah Museum of Art, 134 Jay Street. Tickets: $10 members, $20 nonmembers. Information:katonahmuseum.org; (914) 232-9555.