Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his mentor and longtime collaborator, bassist Steve Swallow, with his intimate, ebulliently performed 2020 ECM album Swallow Tales. Having initially met in the early '70s while Scofield was still a student at Berklee College of Music, Swallow and Scofield built a distinctive creative partnership. They initially formed a trio with drummer Adam Nussbaum, and released a series of harmonically nuanced and exploratory albums like 1980's Bar Talk and 1981's Shinola. They also paired ...
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Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his mentor and longtime collaborator, bassist Steve Swallow, with his intimate, ebulliently performed 2020 ECM album Swallow Tales. Having initially met in the early '70s while Scofield was still a student at Berklee College of Music, Swallow and Scofield built a distinctive creative partnership. They initially formed a trio with drummer Adam Nussbaum, and released a series of harmonically nuanced and exploratory albums like 1980's Bar Talk and 1981's Shinola. They also paired for other eclectic dates over the years, eventually forming another trio with drummer Bill Stewart for the 2004 live album EnRoute. Recorded in a one-day session in 2019, Swallow Tales finds Scofield, Swallow, and Stewart investigating a handful of Swallow's best-loved and lesser-played compositions. The album arrives on the heels of several other Scofield small group sessions, including 2017's Hudson and 2018's Combo 66. As with those dates, Swallow Tales benefits from the guitarist's adventurous attitude and preternatural sense for group interplay. The main difference is Scofield's affinity for Swallow's compositions. Often pretty and simply stated, Swallow's songs have a vocal quality as if they were intended to be sung. In fact, they've occasionally been adapted into vocal numbers, as in the case of the opening "She Was Young," which was originally composed to accompany a poem by Robert Creeley. Obviously, while there is no singing here, Scofield nonetheless plays with a warmth and ringing lyricism that speaks to his deep understanding of Swallow's work. Equally engaging are tracks like the summery "Hullo Bolinas," and the hushed ballad "Away," both of which find Scofield wrapping himself in Swallow's delicate basslines and Stewart's subtle cymbal and brush work. Elsewhere, he takes a more robust and exploratory approach, punctuating tracks like "Falling Grace," "Eiderdown, and "Awful Coffee," with bluesy accents, off-kilter post-bop runs, and twangy asides. Swallow and Stewart, though less frenetically inclined, ground Scofield's flights of fancy with their own textured emotionality. It's a sound whose earthy lilt sometimes has the feel of a three-member vocal group, rather than an instrumental trio. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi
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