Martin Speake, the delicately edgy British alto saxophonist, likes working in trios that sound bigger than they are, and teasing melodiously lyrical lines through soundscapes that are often contrastingly craggy and abstract. His latest trio adventure finds him joined by unique tuba player Oren Marshall and free-jazz drummer Mark Sanders. With just three long all-improv pieces on an unembellished pub-gig recording, Speake’s muse is at full inventive stretch on extended solos that mingle reticent Lee Konitz-like meditations with jigging dances, see-sawing blues figures and interrogatory hoots. Marshall growls, whoops, roars and sometimes nimbly bass-walks, and Sanders eases between pattering swing with the brushes and bumpily rocking grooves. The Quiet Mind lets listeners eavesdrop on the speculations of three articulate and quick-witted musical conversationalists, as the best improv consistently does.
