This is definately the best Scofield album I have ever heard. It's dips into the more hardcore jazz which is very refreshing after his stint in the jam band world with his work with MMW. Tunes like "Hammock Soliloquy" and "Toogs" are some of the finest guitar playing i have ever heard. I could listen to this all day...every day. Definately a MUST HAVE! :)

I recently sco's trio and brad mehldau's trio play at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It was incredible. They played bag, over big top, as well as others from the new album. Sco's incredible style never ceases to amaze, he's unique yet has some major influences from the chord melody style of Jim Hall (who I saw two weeks before sco), as well as some similarities to Pat Metheny. BUY THIS ALBUM.

John has so much to say on his guitar! It's amazing! Besides that the music is very well put together, tight in harmonies, very logical...However, John's guitar work always brings something to the table. Always new, refreshing... How a man can create new melodies over and over again on the 4 chord progression? He's a special kind of guitarist - been put here, just to piss every guitarist off! Like th work! Good, very good!

This is pure, brilliant jazz: live improvization by three virtuosi. Mr. Scofield puts aside his funk-rap experimentation (what a relief) and just swings hard and deep--and in very good company.

Scofield's phrasing, tone, and attack are unique, making him recongizable instantly. He makes every note count, never revelling in speed for speed's sake. I have never heard him play any better.

Steve Swallow might be called the Bill Evans of jazz bass guitar. He gently supports the group in a deeply melodic, gentle (and often tender) manner--swinging all the while. That may sound like a strange description for a bass player, but it all works perfectly.

Bill Stewart has a telepathic connection with Scofield, as he did with Pat Metheny in the lastest incarnation of The Pat Metheny Trio. (Those recordings are highly recommended.) The interplay with Scofield is uncanny and aggressive, yet the beat never fades. Steward has amazing capacities dynamically (those quick swells on the snare are most pleasing) and a displays a very active left hand. He, too, is in a class by himself. He takes chances and comes out on top: never safe, but always good.

This is hearty music. Savor it, and be thankful for these gentleman's musical endowments and their collective chemistry--or should I say alchemy?

Douglas Groothuis

Jazz is a high wire act.

Especially live. As here.

No net beneath. If you slip, you go splat.

These guys don't go splat.

One supposes it helps to have played together for many years, as these three friends (Sco, guitar; Steve Swallow, e-bass; Bill Stewart, drums) and jazz warriors have. Indeed, as Sco says in his brief liner notes: "The music on this CD was recorded live and I think that's the way jazz is played and heard best. Somehow, we rarely get to these places in the studio." They get to "these places," which are, in short, amazing, because of their individual brilliance and collective knowledge of each other's moves.

The most amazing place they get to is "Hammock Soliloquy," nearly ten minutes of bloozy, junk-yard-dog, shifting rhythms stitched together with some very sophisticated free-boppish passages. Somehow, it all hangs together. The intuitive band interaction combined with killer solos from both Sco and Swallow make for some might tasty listening. Swallow, although perhaps not quite as declamatory as on his recent Damage in Transit disc (but it's not his gig here, is it?), nevertheless provides nearly the perfect foil, becoming, at times, almost like "one big guitar together," as Sco puts it in his liner notes.

Other highlights include the pretty straightforward blues, "Bag," on which Sco proves he's among the greatest jazz interpreter of this music ever, helped, enormously, one must admit, by the walking brilliance of Swallow and the crazy rhythm of Stewart, who's all over his kit; "Wee," a Denzel Best standard given a way skanky treatment (which makes me wish for some more interpretations of jazz standards); and a wistfully atmospheric reading of "Alfie," where Sco proves he knows his way around a ballad by giving it a heartfelt, if slightly wackily idiosyncratic, treatment.

Over the past decade, John Scofield has proved himself to be among the greatest jazz guitarist ever. This disc, catching him in rare form on a live gig, goes a long way toward solidifying that well-deserved reputation.