by Phil Johnson
You can't ask for much more perfect a marriage between tradition and post-modernity than this collection of eight standards played by the swingingest cool-school band I've heard in years. Speakes's alto saxophone sounds triangulates Charlie Park, Ornette Coleman and Paul Desmond while the dream rhythm-team of Jeff Williams and Dave Green joins Billy Higgins-style indeterminacy to an unerring sense of time, and young pianist Barry Green gets tricksy and fancy, as all tyros should. There's such love and respect for dear old tunes – My Melancholy Baby has been around since 1912 – that it's very moving too.