Steve Swallow – Bass

Steve Swallow and John Scofield have a playing relationship that goes all the way back to the guitarist’s earliest recordings, ‘Shinola’, ‘Out Like A Light’ and ‘Bar Talk’. The trio is still recording today, some fifty years or more later. Swallow is also a prolific composer and he wrote the track transcribed here. The tune is called ‘Away’ from the 1996 Scofield album, ‘Quiet’. The album is a lost less aggressive than a lot of the Scofield canon and is all the better for it. This tune is very slow and Swallow is only playing root notes. An easy read, it does force you to listen to the pulse is a much more organic way than normal. This is a tune with no groove. It’s all colour with a beautiful horn arrangement in the background.