Respect For Your Toughness (2019)

"Respect For Your Toughness, the third outing for the trio of saxophonist Chris Speed, possesses a distinctive blend of energy and perspicuity, being a winning collection of nine well-written and deftly played originals (all by Speed) plus a low-key rendition of Kay Swift’s standard “Can This Be Love?”. It’s precisely this latter piece, delicately shrouded in Speed’s relaxed tone, that opens up the album. A sense of flimsiness is brought by sequences of notes peacefully aligned with enough air circulating between them to let us have a virtual perception of space. Also sharing this frame of mind, “Faint Tune” languishes in a graceful fragility with the coruscant brushwork of The Bad Plus’ drummer Dave King keeping the torch permanently lit. Speed, Tordini and King are formidable together. Their excellent, disciplined teamwork spawned another record with consistent high quality." (JazzTrail.net)