The popular quartet, with Icelandic Speed can count on robust uplift in bassist Skúli Sverrisson, epitomized a the Speed/King/Tordini trio. Since mid-nineties to mid-noughties fasci- 2000, as the drummer of Bad Plus, nation on the New York scene with Dave King has been an unlikely phe- Eastern European strains. nomenon in jazz: something of a rock All those associations brought Speed star. He’s solidified that standing be- often to Seattle, where his appearances yond the Bad Plus, too, in bands al- have comprised a sort of highlight reel most too many to tally—with Bill of his impressive progression. Frisell, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Craig In 2008, for example, he returned Taborn, not to forget his own Dave with an intrepidly explorative quar- King Trucking Co. (with Chris tet Endangered Blood, another col- Speed), and with multiple other units laboration with Jim Black, formed to beyond jazz. raise money for a then seriously ail- Thanks to his invention, flair, and ing D’Angelo. When the band visited command, King is one of the busiest again in 2016, Earshot Jazz co-found- players in New York jazz circles. Chris er and Seattle Times jazz critic Paul Tordini is rapidly becoming another. de Barros aptly summed up Speed’s He has toured and recorded in Clau- “eclectic interests, which include off- dia Quintet and others bands with the kilter time signatures; the shadowy likes of saxophonists Greg Osby, Steve moods and rich reed colors of Duke Lehman, and Andrew D’Angelo, and Ellington’s ‘jungle band’ period … ; drummers Ari Hoenig, Jim Black, and Ornette Coleman’s skittering energy; Tyshawn Sorey. His playing is “mus- and the ceremonial repetitions of min- cular, yet sympathetic,” as Audiophile imalism.” Audition aptly described it, with richly It is perhaps the “shadowy moods” hued timbre, measured power, and that are most prominent in the Speed/ ever-supportive invention. King/Tordini trio. In fact, Speed’s de- The “nimble” Speed/King/Tordini velopment of a yearning, searching, trio, wrote Peter Margasak in Chicago gently proferred style has been long Reader, who rated Platinum on Tap his coming, including in a series of collab- fifth-favorite album of 2017, embraces orations that have drawn less attention jazz tradition while it tweaks it. Speed to him than his signature bands. You has “never been a grandstanding play- hear it, for example, in his work with er, but now he’s so far beyond the need the innovative chamber-jazz group, to show off that he just lives in the mu- John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet. sic like a second skin.” You can also hear it on Speed’s duo In London Jazz News, Brian Marley recording Ruins (2014) with Italian was similarly complimentary: “Even drummer Zeno de Rossi, or on Lama- when Tordini and King are busily çal (2013), where he sat in with Portu- pushing and pulling the music around guese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva’s in interesting ways,” he wrote, Speed trio, Lama. But you can also go back “delivers his improvisations with wry and hear it emerging on his 1999 quar- insouciance in a style reminiscent at tet album with trumpeter Cuong Vu, times of Lester Young. Surely you can’t Deviantics, even when the album is at get more jazzlike than that.” its most up tempo and up beat. –Peter Monaghan It has something of the worshipful Tickets for Chris Speed Trio are $18 saint John Coltrane and also of Albert adult, $16 Earshot members and senior Ayler in quieter moments of his utter- citizens, $10 students and military and ing in tongues. Certainly Speed quests are avaialble at earshot.org. into that sort of expressive territory.

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