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Martin Speake

Citing Lee Konitz, Charlie Parker, Warne Marsh, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman, Steve ​Coleman, Rabi Abou Khalil, and Paul Motian as major influences, Martin has developed a personal ​musical voice that expresses a deep understanding of the history and language of Jazz with ​individuality as an improviser that is intelligent, melodic, cool, complex, direct, beautiful and ​profound. ​  Born in Barnet, North London in 1958, Martin was inspired to take up the saxophone at the age ​of 16. From 1977-81, he studied Classical Saxophone at Trinity College of Music, where he was awarded the prestigious Dame Ruth Railton prize for woodwind playing. He first came to public attention as a founder member of the award winning Saxophone Quartet ‘Itchy Fingers’ during the height of the UK’s so called ‘80’s Jazz Revival’ when a host of young musicians including Courtney Pine, Andy Sheppard, Django Bates, Iain Ballamy and the big bands of the Jazz Warriors and Loose Tubes were acclaimed as the leaders of an emerging generation of UK jazz talent. 

2004 saw the release of three different cds including The Exploring Standards Trio (33 Records) with bassist Mick Hutton and drummer Tom Skinner, a ballad album My Ideal (Basho Records) with American pianist Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus), and The Journey (Black Box) with Indian musicians Dharambir Singh and Sarvar Sabri. Autumn 2004 he toured with Sam Rivers in his UK big band on a Contemporary Music Network tour. In 2005 he celebrated the music of Charlie Parker with a newly formed group and touring throughout the country promoting a cd release of the project. 

With Itchy Fingers, Martin toured Europe, South America, Africa, Britain and the USA, and recorded two albums. In 1988, he left the group to develop his own projects, and establish himself as a composer and improvisor.

His studies at Canada’s renowned Banff Centre for the Arts in 1990, under the artistic direction of Steve Coleman, and alongside peers that included keyboard players Andy Milne and Ethan Iverson, and trumpeter Ralph Alessi, proved to be pivotal and catalytic in Martin’s subsequent development as a creative musician. Martin is as comfortable and fluent playing personal interpretations of the music of Charlie Parker with his quartet, or with free improvising drummer Mark Sanders, in a duet with Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus, or with Indian musicians Dharambir Singh and Sarvar Sabri. 

In 1999 he received the Peter Whittingham Award to help fund a tour of the UK with The Martin Speake Group. In 2000 he was commissioned to compose music for an international project featuring American drummer Paul Motian, Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson and English bassist Mick Hutton. This group toured in May of that year with funding from the Arts Council of England and toured again in Autumn 2001. Their first cd Change of Heart was released on ECM in April 2006.  ​

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3
Album Review

Martin Speake / Alex Maguire: Feathers

Read "Feathers" reviewed by Matt Parker


A partnership which perhaps could and should have developed years ago, saxophonist Martin Speake and pianist Alex Maguire both attended the legendary Barry Jazz School in 1979 which featured an incredible cast of tutors ,including Stan Sulzmann, Keith Tippett, Gordon Beck, Allan Holdsworth and many other “A" list British jazz musicians. Amazingly Speake and Maguire failed to meet at this junction and would have to wait nearly 40 years for their paths to finally cross, at a chance meeting in ...

3
Album Review

Martin Speake: Intention

Read "Intention" reviewed by Roger Farbey


Celebrating his 60th birthday in April 2018, Martin Speake has been a stalwart of the British jazz scene for some forty years, initially playing with the saxophone quartet Itchy Fingers. He is lead alto saxophonist in the redoubtable London Jazz Orchestra and his teaching duties extend to Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and London's Royal Academy of Music. In his review of Speake's album Change Of Heart (ECM, 2006), John Kelman summarised the saxophonist's playing perfectly: “Speake's playing ...

3
Profile

Martin Speake: The Thinking Fan's Saxophonist

Read "Martin Speake: The Thinking Fan's Saxophonist" reviewed by Duncan Heining


British alto saxophonist, Martin Speake, is one of the most adventurous and articulate musicians in a music peppered with creative artists. That he is not a household name--even within the proscribed and marginalised world of jazz--says more about the times than it does about Speake or his single-minded approach to his art. Speake combines in his music a purposeful curiosity with a love of the jazz tradition. He is equally capable of flights into free improvisation and into ...

6
Multiple Reviews

Martin Speake: The Unquiet Mind

Read "Martin Speake: The Unquiet Mind" reviewed by Duncan Heining


We have here three very fine CDs from British alto saxophonist, Martin Speake. Speake is classically trained and when I first heard him in the late 90s, he brought to jazz a tone that emphasised the clarity of each note and the purity of the melodic line that was quite unusual in a music more used to the personalised sounds of a Hodges, a Bird, a Desmond or an Ornette. Over the years, his alto playing has perhaps become more ...

196
Album Review

Martin Speake: Generations

Read "Generations" reviewed by John Kelman


British altoist Martin Speake isn't as well-known as he ought to be, but he may well be the clearest successor to the unadorned, warm-toned approach of the legendary Lee Konitz. But while Konitz has undeniably led a career defined by diversity, Speake has stretched considerably farther, with albums ranging from the Indo- centric The Journey (Black Box, 2004) and uniquely modern, guitar-centric take on Charlie Parker (Jazzizit, 2005), to accessible free improvisation with percussionist Mark Sanders on Spark (Pumpkin, 2007) ...

106
Album Review

Martin Speake / Mark Sanders: Spark

Read "Spark" reviewed by John Kelman


British altoist Martin Speake has made a career out of doing things differently. With Exploring Standards (33 Records, 2003) he adopted a decidedly minimalist and miniaturist approach to jazz standards. Charlie Parker (Jazzizit, 2005) presented a modernistic alternative to most of the tributes recorded for the 50th anniversary year of the legendary saxophonist's death. So it should come as no surprise that Spark puts a decidedly personal spin on free improvisation. The idea of an entire album ...

109
Album Review

Martin Speake: Change Of Heart

Read "Change Of Heart" reviewed by Budd Kopman


One of the more interesting extra-musical things to observe in jazz is how the connections between musicians happen, and then, of course, how those connections affect the music they produce. In 1993, Martin Speake connected with Paul Motian, and they toured as a trio with bassist Mick Hutton, playing both Speake's and Motian's compositions. Fast forward seven years to 2000 and Speake added Bobo Stenson to the group, playing and composing music that was sensitive to both ...

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“Speake is a strikingly talented improviser with a seemingly bottomless well of inspiration.” - Encyclopedia of Popular Music “An alto saxophonist who sounds only like himself.” Dave Gelly - The Observer “A saxophonist with an unusual turn of phrase, a persuasively gentle sound and jazz allegiances that don’t follow the usual Coltranesque paths but veer instead toward the fifties Cool School, Martin Speake is not just a distinctive improviser but a striking composer too. Superficially, Speake can sometimes seem cool to the point of chilliness - but like his original inspirations, the heat is all in the logic and integrity of the lines, the balance of mind and heart.” John Fordham - The Guardian “One of the most original and interesting contemporary jazz saxophonists on the British scene

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Feathers

Pumpkin Records
2019

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Intention

Ubuntu Music
2018

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Bloor Street

Hollywood & Highland Summer Jazz Concert Series
2010

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Generations

Pumpkin Records
2008

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Spark

Pumpkin Records
2007

buy

Change Of Heart

ECM Records
2006

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