Platinum On Tap (Intakt Records)
Chris Speed Trio
Released August 18, 2017
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
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This new album by Chris Speed’s excellent trio with drummer Dave King and bassist Chris Tordini is in many ways Speed’s most fully developed and personal work to date. Since arriving in New York in the early 1990s, he has become one of the most vital improvising musicians on the scene through work that has always ranged widely, moving from a jazz base out through various forms of folk, classical and rock music.
With the formation of this trio Speed has reversed course: moving from these outer explorations back into something that is unquestionably jazz. What is most striking about this record is that the early jazz influences are now fully center stage. Instead of being one of a number of competing musical influences, some kind of feeling of the aesthetic of Lester Young is now at the center of everything. At a time when many jazz players are continuing to look further and further outside the tradition, this is a group returning from other explorations to work deep within the jazz tradition, bringing everything else they’ve learned back in …
The resulting music is joyful and generous and Speed has an uncanny knack for coming up with tunes that can create a whole worlds behind an often catchy melodic surface.
Anthony Burr (from the liner notes)
Track Listing:
1. Red Hook Nights (Chris Speed) 4:17
2. Arrival High (Chris Speed) 6:51
3. Buffalo 15 (Chris Speed) 4:31
4. Crossface Cradle (Chris Speed) 5:28
5. Pretty Much (Chris Speed) 4:26
6. Crooked Teeth (Chris Speed) 3:52
7. Platinum On Tap (Chris Speed) 3:50
8. Stardust (Hoagy Carmichael) 5:31
9. Torking (Chris Speed) 3:44
10. Spirits (Albert Ayler) 2:41
Personnel:
Chris Tordini: acoustic bass
Dave King: drums
Chris Speed: tenor saxophone
Recorded live at Brooklyn Recording on March 3, 2016, by Andy Taub
Assisted by Aurélien Jubault
Mastered by Huntley Miller
Cover art and graphic design: Jonas Schoder
Photo: Ralph Gluch
Executive Production by Florian Keller
Produced by Chris Speed and Intakt Records, Patrick Landolt
Review:
The Chris Speed Trio’s new album, Platinum On Tap—the excellent follow-up to its 2014 debut, Really OK (Skirl)—continues its artistic journey of making new music that draws upon jazz history. Saxophonist Speed, drummer Dave King and bassist Chris Tordini have crafted a cohesive program of originals and two covers that nods to the music of past decades without simply rehashing the art that inspired these savvy players. The music here occupies a space outside of time, a testament to the trio’s unique ability to dig into a older style and pull out new sounds from it. This is true for the entire album, but it’s illustrated particularly well on the last three tunes—Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” Speed’s original “Torking” and Albert Ayler’s “Spirits.” On “Stardust,” the trio artfully reanimates a standard, on “Torking” Speed takes a classic tenor voice sound and juxtaposes it with something much more modern, and on “Spirits” the musicians dive into free-jazz territory. Speed’s playing on the opener, “Red Hook Nights,” is mellow, patient and lyrical, emphasizing—as the liner notes indicate—“the connection between the vocal and instrumental.” Platinum On Tap provides an intense glimpse into past but still looks forward.
Izzy Yellen (DownBeat)
