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Speake low: Jeff Williams (above, left), Martin Speake, and Mike Outram

Saxophonist Martin Speake’s new recording, a double album called Always a First Time was released a decade after Change of Heart was recorded, Speake’s last big statement until now eventually emerging on ECM. It’s very stop and start with Speake, one of the 1980s Britjazz generation’s biggest talents but whose contribution is most difficult to gauge. Change of Heart recorded with the late Paul Motian, Mick Hutton, and Bobo Stenson, was praised at the time for its Lee Konitz-type clarity and “unhurried” playing. And Always a First Time, this new double album released on Speake’s own label retains that palpable sense of patience, beginning at an almost stately pace.

The Konitz connection is retained, not just in Speake’s sound but in the presence of former Konitz drummer Jeff Williams returning from the quartet. Speake also dedicates ‘Ramshackle’ to Konitz.

At the Vortex gig the Finchley-based saxophonist appears with Williams and guitarist Mike Outram. On Always A First Time Williams appears in an up-front role throughout the 20 songs just like the other two musicians, with Outram also performing a crucial function, colouring the sound especially on the Puccini aria ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ (dedicated to Speake’s father, appropriately). Oddly you don’t miss the bass, but Outram’s skill has a lot to do with this as well as Williams’ ability to make the drums sing.

The trio covers a great deal of ground only partially explained by the extra canvas the two CDs provide. With songs dedicated to friends, mentors and inspirations Always a First Time is predominantly ballad-driven, but it’s not particularly brooding. More philosophical, and on tracks such as ‘Twister’, on the second CD, there is also a sense of abandon that a quick first listen might not straight away fix on to but is definitely there. Recorded in the same room, unseparated, without headphones, the way records used to be made Speake says “we all played from the heart”. And you can tell this when a song like ‘Meditation’, which crops up on both discs with two different dedicatees one of whom includes Fidel Castro, dissolves (on the second disc) into a ‘listening silence’, when you just know the players like what they’re hearing and do not need to push the tune on any more than is strictly necessary in case the mood is spoiled. The second of the CDs may well have the edge, as it’s a bit more open, and perhaps the club gig will draw on this aspect of Speake’s approach. But the more orthodox ballad-and- cool school bop approach on the first disc, with songs that include Rodgers and Hart’s ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ and many fine Speake originals, have an integrity that is a hallmark of Always a First Time as is its sense of the bigger picture. SG
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