Steve Swallow's Hybrid Soloing on Scofield's "Bag"
by John Scofield (solo by Steve Swallow), as heard on En Route (2004, Verve Records) - Visit John Scofield's official site
Steve Swallow is renowned as one of the smoothest bass players around, and his brilliant solo on this John Scofield original is proof positive. This solo straddles the line between a standard instrumental solo and a "walking solo," a bass-borne methodology in which the player fills the majority of sonic space with quarter note-based lines. Swallow fills the space between most quarter notes with ghost notes, giving the solo an upfront active quality, and leaves very few gaps in his lines. In fact, after the second bar, there is never a gap of more than an 8th note! This strategy demands careful control over the texture of your solo: too much quarter-note connectedness and a solo can start to feel like a slosh of notes, but too many 8th notes can make a solo feel cluttered, and makes lines sound trite. This solo is also rife with beautiful over-the-bar hemiola patterns, which Swallow uses to create a kaleidoscope-like effect on the changes. Take a look at measure 7: Swallow takes a 3-beat rhythmic motive and plays four repetitions of that motive back-to-back, resulting in an unusual 3-over-4 feel, leading all the way to bar 10. Following a measure and a beat of quarters, he repeats the motive twice more, with the final iteration leading cleanly to the second chorus of solo, a shining example of rhythmically-motivic development.
Finally, the interaction of Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart is phenomenal throughout this solo, and worthy of study for rhythm sections. Stewart thoroughly develops his own comping line on the drums, alongside Swallow's solo, and their meetings are significant. As an example, leading into the third chorus, Stewart switches from the dry sound of open and closed hi-hat to ride-based comping, making the change with four beats of open hat at measure 24, and a buzz roll into letter C. Swallow acknowledges the change by playing a bar of "straight time" at letter C, and by making his entire next chorus at C very connected, slightly busier, and more downbeat oriented, leading from there into the climactic choruses at D and beyond. These subtle interactions are the hallmarks of rhythm section players that are comfortable with one another and highly aware of the texture and development of a solo--Stewart helps to compose this solo from the drums as much as Swallow composes from the bass, and their collective effort makes the entire solo much more compelling. For examples of this in reverse, listen to the choruses beyond the bass solo, where Stewart takes the lead and Swallow lays down walking lines underneath; while the lead-accompaniment relationship is switched, the aspect of collective composition persists.
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