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Martin Speake

Generations

Pumpkin Records

Martin Speake has been playing with the trio featured on this recording – bassist Dave Green, pianist Barry Green, drummer Jeff Williams – for some time now in various residencies in the London area, so they have developed both the musical rappport everywhere apparent on the album's eight tracks and a wide-ranging repertoire from which said tracks could be chosen.

The oldest song is the album's opener – 'My Melancholy Baby' (1912) – and it neatly exemplifies the originality and freshness of the quartet's approach: alto and drums in duo alternate intriguingly with bass and piano ditto before the quartet kicks in as a unit.

The Sinatra-popularised slow-burning torch song 'I'm a Fool to Want You' receives a briskish, light latinisation; the Waller classic 'Jitterbug Waltz' (memorably revived by Eric Dolphy) brings out all the quartet's rhythmic grace and dexterity; the Charlie Parker bop staple 'Donna Lee' is suitably fleet – whatever they're playing, though, it's the band's cohesiveness and individual prowess that impress.

Barry Green always manages to find something unusual and interesting to say in his solo features; Dave Green and Jeff Williams demonstrate all their considerable experience throughout; Speake himself, while not a heart-on-sleeve emoter like, say, Art Pepper, is always intelligent, musicianly and absorbing in his solo spots. Overall, a pleasing record of a working band featuring four accomplished musicians who discernibly enjoy each other's playing.