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.