John Scofield, Dave Holland

CD version. Memories of Home is the first duo album by guitarist John Scofield and bassist Dave Holland, two players whose paths have crossed for decades. They have worked together in projects with Herbie Hancock and Joe Henderson, and co-led the band ScoLoHoFo with Joe Lovano and Al Foster. The nine tunes are their own, five by Scofield and four by Holland, most of them pieces first heard in other settings and rethought here for guitar and double bass alone.

The duo idea goes back years. A tour planned for 2020 was cancelled by the pandemic, so they first played as a duo in late 2021 and toured again in 2024, and the recording followed. It was made in August 2024 at NRS Recording Studio in Catskill, New York, with Scott Petito as engineer, and the two musicians produced it themselves. Scofield explains the approach: "We share decades of common references musically. The similarities and differences in our approaches make for a more interesting collaboration, I think." Miles Davis is one of those references, since Scofield played with him from 1982 to 1985 and Holland from 1968 to 1970.

The opener, Icons at the Fair, is built on the chords of Hancock's arrangement of Scarborough Fair from The New Standard, an album on which both men played. Its melody alludes to a trumpet phrase of Miles. Holland's Mr. B honours his first double bass hero, Ray Brown, and first appeared on his album Points of View; its blues feel and lithe swing suit Scofield well. The title piece comes from a 1980s session with the bluegrass musicians Vassar Clements and John Hartford, and its gentle contours draw out the country side of Scofield's playing. Not for Nothin' and You I Love update tunes from Holland's earlier ECM records.

Reviewing the album for The Arts Fuse in October 2025, Steve Elman wrote that Holland's sound "has rarely been captured so beautifully, even on his own records for ECM." He singled out Easy for You, a Scofield tune from 1992, where Holland "goes deep into the heart of the tune with one of his best solos on the disc." Elman also warned that the record could easily be taken as pleasant background music, and argued that it deserves listening with full attention.

This CD edition, ECM 2860, was released on 21 November 2025.