Swallow Tales (ECM)

John Scofield

Released June 12, 2020

Jazzwise Top 20 Releases of 2020

JAZZ FM 25 Best Jazz Albums of 2020

BBC Music Magazine Greatest Jazz Albums 2020

The Guardian 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2020

AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2020

JazzTimes Top 10 New Jazz Releases of 2020

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ibsb1TD-zl4&list=RDAMVMibsb1TD-zl4

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ys8Jkt-dfLs&list=RDAMVMys8Jkt-dfLs

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=0LXPMxTO4eU&list=RDAMVM0LXPMxTO4eU

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/4wtKmtN8Qx805HHmjpSDbL?si=l2VEujrtS9Stzk1psZ2q3w

About:

Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his friend and mentor Steve Swallow in an outgoing and spirited recording, made in an afternoon in New York City in March 2019 – “old school” style as Scofield says, acknowledging that more than forty years of preparation led up to it. John was a 20-year-old student at Berklee when he first met and played with bassist Swallow, and they have continued ever since, in many different contexts. 
“I love these songs”, says Scofield of the selection of Swallow compositions explored here – a broad range including tunes that have become standards, as well as some lesser-known works. The rapport between Scofield and Swallow is evident in every moment. John: “Sometimes when we play it’s like one big guitar, the bass part and my part together.” 
Behind the drum kit, Bill Stewart is alert to all the implications of the interaction. “What Bill does is more than ‘playing the drums,’” Scofield says. “He’s a melodic voice in the music, playing counterpoint, and comping, while also swinging really hard.” The guitarist himself plays with fire and invention throughout: “These two giants bring out the best in me.”
Swallow’s compositions, John notes, “make perfect vehicles for improvisation. The changes are always interesting – but not too interesting! They’re grounded in reality, with cadences that make sense. They’re never just intellectual exercises, and they’re so melodic. They’re all songs, rather than ‘pieces’. They could all be sung.”
Swallow Tales opens with “She Was Young”, a tune introduced on Steve Swallow’s ECM album Home, in 1979, where it was indeed sung, by Sheila Jordan. A number of the tunes addressed here – including “Falling Grace”, “Portsmouth Configurations”, and “Eiderdown” – belonged to the 1960s repertoire of Gary Burton’s groups. Scofield, who had admired them from the outset, studied them with Burton and the composer in the early 1970s, by which point Swallow had made the transition from double bass to bass guitar, creating a new voice for himself on the electric instrument. When Scofield launched his own recording career, Swallow was in his trio (with Adam Nussbaum on drums). Touring widely the guitarist and the bassist fine-tuned their musical understanding, a process continued in many other configurations over the years. Scofield appeared on Steve’s XtraWatt album Swallow in 1991, for instance, and Swallow is on numerous Scofield recordings – including the recent Country For Old Men, which also featured Bill Stewart. A close associate since the early 1990s, drummer Stewart had played in John’s quartet with Joe Lovano, and gone on to join the guitarist in many journeys over varied musical terrain.
John Scofield has recorded for jazz labels including Impulse, Blue Note, Verve, Emarcy and Gramavision. ECM appearances to date have been infrequent but distinguished; they include two albums with Marc Johnson’s Bass Desires group – Bass Desires (recorded 1985) and Second Sight (1987) – in which the guitarist shared frontline duties with Bill Frisell. On Shades of Jade (2004), a third Marc Johnson album, Scofield is heard alongside frequent colleague Joe Lovano. The live double album Saudades (recorded in 2004), meanwhile, features Scofield as a member of Trio Beyond, alongside Jack DeJohnette and Larry Goldings, reassessing the songbook of Tony Williams’ Lifetime. Swallow Tales is the first of his ECM recordings to feature the guitarist as bandleader.

John Scofield on Swallow Tales, track-by-track:
She Was Young
One of Swallow’s most beautiful tunes, originally set to a Robert Creeley poem. There’s a great long coda, where we really stretch.
 
Falling Grace
Probably Steve’s most famous tune and the form exemplifies Swallow’s preference for circular. Bill plays more straight eighths and Steve gives a great example of “broken time” bass playing that really cooks.
 
Portsmouth Configurations 
I first heard this on Gary Burton’s classic Duster album when I was in high school. We free it up here on the guitar solo and go to some interesting places.
 
Awful Coffee
Swallow originally wrote this as an up-tempo tune but I slowed it down for this performance and Steve likes it.
 
Eiderdown
Swallow’s first composition! It’s been recorded often and it’s one of my favorite tunes to stretch out on. I think this version is particularly gritty and includes a great drum solo.
 
Hullo Bolinas
Steve wrote this lovely, tricky waltz when he left NYC to live in Northern California as a young man. One of Steve’s prettiest songs.

Away
A beautiful ballad that has a very short form and include a written intro that is only played once. Very unusual.
 
In F
Here Steve borrowed the harmony from Cole Porter and wrote a head that features drum breaks. Bill, as usual, leaps to the occasion and kicks butt.
 
Radio
The harmony on this one is ridiculously hard to solo on but I’ve known it for 40 plus years so no excuses. This is another example of Steve’s” broken time” bass playing and Stewart sounds like he’s having fun breaking it up with him.

Track Listing:

1. She Was Young 09:33

2. Falling Grace 05:27

3. Portsmouth Configurations 03:31

4. Awful Coffee 09:28

5. Eiderdown 07:13

6. Hullo Bolinas 04:15

7. Away 04:54

8. In F 04:34

9. Radio 04:21

Personnel:

John Scofield: electric guitar

Steve Swallow: bass guitar

Bill Stewart: drums

Recorded March, 2019, at The James L. Dolan Recording Studio, NYU Steinhardt, NY, by Tyler McDiarmid

Design: Sascha Kleis

Cover Photo: Max Franosch

Executive Producer: Manfred Eicher

Review:

John Scofield met Steve Swallow at Berklee half a century ago, in a student-teacher connection that became a playing partnership and a lifelong friendship. That rapport (which Scofield has described ‘like one big guitar, the bass part and my part together’) is celebrated in this spirited exploration of nine Swallow originals, on which the pair are joined by Bill Stewart, Scofield’s drummer of choice for years.

The opener is the bassist’s graceful 1979 waltz ‘She Was Young’, originally a vehicle for vocalist Sheila Jordan – and Scofield’s ease in this company is palpable in a solo of teasing squeezed-off tone-bends, ringing single tones, and chunky chords that quickly fade into murmurs, while his signature sliding-blues harmonies pepper a long, percussion-intensifying coda. The shapely swinger ‘Falling Grace’ (the most famous of several tunes here originally written for Gary Burton’s 1960s group) zings with Scofield’s changing phrase-patterns, he joins long-lined bebop to ringing chord-melody licks and a glint of Chuck Berry on ‘Eiderdown’, and his and Swallow’s connections with guitar master Jim Hall are glimpsed in the haunting ballad ‘Away’ and the urgently waltzing ‘Hullo Bolinas’. ‘Radio’, the bustling finale, is a chord-maze everyone treats as an effortless stroll. Swallow Tales is a delightful group venture, but John Scofield, sounding absolutely in his element, can rarely have opened up his signature soundworld on a guitar with more spontaneous relish. 

John Fordham (Jazzwise)