Small Blue

Discus Music has a number of excellent drummer/percussionists on its books (on its albums.) Martin Pyne might be an old hand but gee, he’s a classy master, able to place space across the shifting rhythmic cycles he brings into play. Like the American drummer Jack DeJohnette, Martin also composes on piano. There’s definitely something pianistic about the way these two drummers approach percussion. Their signatures get scribed into the drum kit, identification is as much a pause than a beat. There are sections on this trio recording by Small Blue where you’d think Mr Pyne and the pianist David Beebee were locked into the same brain wave pattern – for example Prabaker’s Taxi routes its way round some very tight corners and the keyboard and kit are completely in parallel. I mean, this is playing of the very highest order; an aural picture, the bump and grind of a Bombay taxi negotiating its way through traffic, except, it’s actually piano, bass and drums working off a score, yet all the time they’re improvising its execution. Premier stuff. I think the last time Pyne and Beebee were out together on Discus was a fine duo recording called Ripples. The addition of Marianne Windham’s double bass makes for an even stronger cohesion. It would be wrong to describe Small Blue’s Furrow as groove music, not even in a Blue Note/Horace Silver kinda way, nonetheless Marianne Windham’s presence offers the pianist and percussionist a bass bounce that really frees them up, gets in-between those parallel line, shapes and bends them a bit. This is high grade Bill Evans Trio territory. You only have to check out the range of bass maestros that went through that stellar trio to appreciate how crucial a role the bass player’s performance is to the art of the piano trio. Another example: Flirting At The Acme Bookstore is a borrowed Furrow. Its little angled riff is lifted from one of Thelonious Monk’s blues heads, maybe I Mean You or Ask Me Now. Who cares, the point is Acme Bookstore is a cool place. Right from the opening double bass run smacking into the get-go it’s like a striking arm of a pendulum. Mmm, this is serious fun. There’s twelve distinct Furrows on this gloriously album. I’m willing to concede that the small blue furrows are drawn straight. However, each track has its own picture, each track turns its own curve, put all together and Small Blue have themselves a minor masterpiece. At the time of writing, its 6.10 in the morning, I’ve had this music going around my ears all week. It’s like reading a book that can’t be put down. Play it again Mr Pyne. – Steve Day, May 2025

This is the second album from Martin Pyne’s trio, Small Blue, that the drummer and percussionist modestly describes as a group that he can write for. While he is often associated with a freer mode of expression, Pyne has always expressed a love for composing and anyone who has heard his Quartet recordings and Small Blue’s earlier release The Stealthy Moon would agree that it is something that he rather excels at.

With Furrow what Small Blue deliver is more of the same but different. Having built a solid rapport as a trio, the relationship between the three musicians is now stretched and explored with a set of material that is no less lyrical but can be said to swing to a different beat.

The lyrical side of the Pyne’s compositions are expressed beautifully on ‘Topaz’ complete with Beebee’s flowing and melodic piano solo and the lengthy and absorbing ‘Honey Street’ that never exhibits anything other than a truly wonderous piece of interplay from the trio. This is also evident in ‘Before The Thaw’ that was written as part of a collaboration for a live film score with pianist Stephen Horne. The film in question was a 1926 silent movie, Between The Law, and the dark undertones of the opening piano and bass statement of the theme give way to a lighter feel and a wonderful solo from bassist Marianne Windham.

Films, novels and imagery play an important part in Pyne’s work both with Small Blue and in other aspects of his musical output, but with the trio it is perhaps presented in its purist and least abstract setting. The dramatic ‘Prabaker’s Taxi’ portrays a character from the novel Shantaram by David Roberts, and the music conjures up images of the chaos of the traffic as envisaged in 1980’s Bombay, with Windham’s bass line pulling all along in its wake and an excellent drum solo from Pyne.

The leader’s inventive and original drumming is also featured in the intro to ‘The View From Your Heart’ that then brings forth an unexpected melodic curve in the composition. Pyne also takes a drum solo on this piece that continues the inventive feel of the introduction, while the propulsive aspect of the trio’s repertoire is captured in a beautifully executed ‘Okri’ that has a fascinating sense of containment with bass and drums laying down an exhilarating foundation for pianist David Beebee improvisation.

With shades of Monk in Pyne’s quirky ‘Flirting At The Acme Bookstore’ depicting a scene from the movie The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart playing private detective Philip Marlowe as the lone customer with the Acme Bookstore proprietress played by Dorothy Malone in a scene that Pyne says ‘steals the whole movie’. It is evident that in this piece, as throughout the whole of this fine album, the trio create their own unique rhythmic impetus that coupled with their deeply felt empathy for the compositions and each other’s playing make for some superb contemporary jazz. – Nick Lea, JAZZ VIEWS https://jazzviews.net/small-blue-furrow/

The field that drummer Martin Pyne orders in SMALL BLUE da at Furrow (DISCUS 190CD) together with David Beebee, his partner in Espial, on piano and with Marianne Windham, his playmate in the Martin Pyne Quartet, on bass, on which eclectic exquisite flourishes. ‘The Expendable Man’ evokes in noir the last crime novel by Dorothy B Hughes. ‘Before the Thaw’ refers to ‘After the Law’ (1926), the Soviet film adaptation of a Jack London story. ‘The View From Your Heart’ quotes from a poem by the Nigerian Ben Okri, who is celebrated again with ‘Okri’. In ‘Weaving the Spell’, Nimue subjects Merlin to her spell. ‘Stolen By the Breeze’ and ‘Karesansui’ refer to haikus and Japanese gardens. ‘Prabaker’s Taxi’ comes from “Shantaram” (2003), the key novel from robber to artist by Australian Gregory Roberts. ‘Topaz’ was inspired by the unconventional stepmother in Dodie Smith’s ‘I Capture the Castle’ (1949), ‘Flirting at the Acme Bookstore’ by the iconic scene in ‘The Big Sleep’. And with ‘Laughing and Crying and Drinking and Waltzing’, the three treat themselves to a well-deserved evening after the day’s work. To praise this with namedrops like Ellington and Bill Evans is not original, but if you emphasize the melancholy in addition to the intimacy, elegance and sophistication, it goes in the right direction. [BA 128 rbd] – Rigobert Dittmann, BAD ALCHEMY

Small Blue, founded in 2023 by drummer Martin Pyne, is a British classical piano jazz trio. Pyne sees the band as a vehicle for the many compositions he has written over the years, which, logically, he can’t express in the improvised music he often performs on stage. With Furrow, the trio releases its second album after The Stealthy Moon (2024). The twelve compositions, totaling 71 minutes of surprisingly accessible music, are written by Pyne and arranged by the trio. The tracks offer both heartfelt ballads and mysterious grooves, as well as evocative atmospheres and melodic swing. They are inspired partly by novels and poems Pyne has read, and partly by artworks he has seen and places he has visited. On the inside of the gatefold sleeve, he dedicates a few illuminating sentences to each composition. An album that reads like an open book. Listen to it in one sitting! – Patrick Auwelaert, JAZZ&MO https://jazzandmo.be/furrow

The album commences with “The Expendable Man”, the title taken from that of the final novel by the author Dorothy B Hughes. Pyne describes the piece as “music for an imaginary Film Noir”. Introduced by Windham’s bass the piece has a suitably noirish quality but also retains an underlying lyricism. Pyne’s drumming is finely nuanced and full of subtle detail as he complements Beebee’s thoughtful piano solo. Windham’s bass is also woven carefully into the fabric of the music, which is full of unexpected twists and turns. Small Blue is a particularly well balanced trio with a well established group rapport.

Continuing the cinematic theme “Before The Thaw” is dedicated to pianist Stephen Horne, Pyne’s partner on numerous silent film projects. The melody of this composition was written for their collaboration for the 1926 silent movie “Before The Thaw”, set in the Yukon. There’s an unexpected warmth and lyricism about the music, which incorporates a delightfully lyrical double bass solo from Windham and some wonderfully delicate brush work from Pyne, plus some marvellous piano playing from Beebee.

“The View From Your Heart” takes its title from a line in Ben Okri’s love poem “Slept Badly”.
Pyne also explains that the drum groove was created for dancer and choreographer Buddy Watkins, to whom the tune is dedicated. Pyne introduces the piece at the kit, subsequently joined by Windham on bass and later Beebee at the piano. The colourful, gently shuffling drum groove underpins Beebee’s subtly probing piano explorations. Eventually Pyne is left on his own for a neatly constructed drum feature that is rich in terms of colour and texture and which is positively melodic at times. Piano and bass then rejoin as Pyne renews his gentle dialogue with Beebee.

“Weaving The Spell” revisits an old Busnoys tune and is a composition inspired by Arthurian mythology. Pyne states that the music is meant to have an otherworldly quality and there’s something of this on an atmospheric intro that combines his mallet rumbles and deft cymbal work with Beebee’s crystalline piano. This evocative piece draws on the influence of medieval music too. Windham’s bass briefly assumes the lead towards the close of this exquisite trio performance.

The next piece, “Stolen By The Breeze” takes its title from a line in a Haiku by the 17th century poet Ransetsu; “A single leaf falls, then another, stolen by the breeze”. It’s a delightful image and its fragile beauty also finds expression in the music. A freely structured intro featuring the sounds of Pyne’s brushed drums evolves into something more straightforwardly beautiful and lyrical, with Beebee’s thoughtful pianism at its heart and with Windham delivering another beautifully melodic double bass solo.

Pyne’s admiration for the talents of the great Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri find further expression in the composition “Okri”. This is another piece introduced by the leader’s drums and there’s something of an African quality about the rhythms he lays down, combining with Windham’s bass to provide a platform for Beebee’s lithe pianism with its darting motifs. The leader’s drums subsequently assume the lead towards the close distinguished by the colourful, polyrhythmic quality of Pyne’s playing. The piece resolves itself when bass and piano return, with Beebee entering into a final dialogue with the leader.

Of “Karesansui” Pyne states;
“Karesansui describes Japanese ‘dry landscape’ gardens. In this piece the trio improvises towards a complete statement of the written tune, as if making a garden”.
The freely structured intro features the sounds of percussion, including gongs and cymbals, combined with mallet rumbles plus the contributions piano and bass. It’s a genuine musical discussion, thoughtful and understated, and with Pyne’s delicately nuanced, finely detailed drums and percussion playing a vital role. Eventually the three way conversation leads to the statement of the written theme but it’s the improvisatory roots that are perhaps the most impressive.

From Japan to India and the very different feel of “Prabaker’s Taxi”, a tune that takes its title from a character in Gregory David Roberts’ novel “Shantaram”, set in 1980s Bombay. The music depicts the character, Prabaker, an incurable optimist, dodging through the chaos of the city traffic behind the wheel of a taxi. It’s an extremely evocative piece with Windham’s grounding bass pulse allowing Pyne’s playful drums and percussion, plus Beebee’s similarly impish piano, to capture the scene. In a neat kind of reversal one can imagine one’s own mental silent movie to accompany the music as the worlds of literature, sound and film come together.

“Topaz” also takes its initial inspiration from literature and a character from the Dodie Smith tale “I Capture The Castle”. It’s an elegant and lyrical ballad, introduced by a passage of unaccompanied piano and featuring Pyne’s delicate brushwork, plus another beautifully melodic double bass solo from Windham.

It’s back to the cinema for “Flirting At The Acme Bookstore”, inspired by a scene from the movie “The Big Sleep”, starring Humphrey Bogart and Dorothy Malone, the film inspired in turn by Raymond Chandler’s novel. Introduced by Pyne at the kit it’s a playful piece that combines jazz swing with an agreeable quirkiness and cocquettishness that befits its title.
The performance includes a drum feature from Pyne, but Beebee and Windham play significant roles too.

“Honey Street” is inspired by a location on the Kennet and Avon Canal beneath the Alton Barnes White Horse. Pyne asks us to “imagine a hot, late summer evening just before sunset” and the gentle, bucolic feeling of the music allows the listener to do just that. Pyne is a highly democratic bandleader and once again there’s a beautiful double bass solo from Windham. Beebee’s piano solo is flowingly lyrical and Pyne largely deploys brushes, playing with great taste and delicacy throughout.

Pyne describes the final track “Laughing and Crying and Drinking and Waltzing” as “an after hours drinking song”, possibly at a canal side pub! Less manic and more mellow than its title might suggest it’s a beautiful way to finish an excellent album, with bassist Windham again getting her moment in the spotlight.

Pyne has established a long running relationship with the Discus record label and “Furrow” represents something of a departure for both artist and label, each is more commonly associated with more experimental, largely improvised music.

“Furrow” may be relatively ‘straight-ahead’ but it’s a recording that both Pyne and Discus can be proud of. Following on from the success of its predecessor “The Stealthy Moon” this is an album that reveals Pyne to be an excellent composer and there are some absolutely gorgeous tunes here. The music is by turns beautiful, playful and evocative with the leader’s drums at the heart of the music in what is a particularly well calibrated trio. Beebee deserves praise in his capacities as both pianist and sound engineer, the recorded sound is immaculate throughout. Windham forms an effective team with Pyne, her grounding bass lines allowing the leader a degree of freedom that he utilises to great effect. She also steps out from her supporting role to deliver a series of articulate and often beautiful bass solos.

At nearly seventy minutes there’s a lot of music on this album, but there’s no filler, it’s all high quality and in this sense the album represents excellent value for money.

Small Blue might be led by a drummer but this is one of the best ‘piano trio’ albums that I’ve heard in a long time. – Ian Mann, JAZZMAN https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/small-blue-furrow

Martin Pyne is perhaps best known for his percussion adventures, but the piano trio Small Blue, which includes pianist David Beebee and bassist Marianne Windham, is a vehicle for his ever-growing collection of piano based compositions. Furrow uses the trio as a means to find a home for those pieces that are less about improvisation and more about the feel of a classic jazz format. But where this selection differs and what gives it its variety is that they are inspired by many sorts of other artistic media, be they poetry, film or books. I have listened a lot to this album and it contains such a variety of work that you can hear different little elements each time; but at the end of the day it is like a series of jazz soundtrack pieces that evoke thoughts and imagery in the listener’s mind, be it the playful noir-ish swing of “The Expendable Man”, which takes its groove from a lovely subtle bass line, to the deeper melancholy of “Before The Thaw”, where the bass adds a real early morning weariness to the song. It really stretches expressing that feeling of having seen the night through, featherlight percussion like the first rays of morning sun with the piano’s light expansiveness taking the theme and pursuing it further into the day. As the chief writer, it is often up to Martin to make the statements that allow the other to follow; but in others, the percussion is a loose chuckling current that scampers through the hedgerows, popping out with a brief moment of clarity. It is the sort of stuff that a lot of jazz pianists wouldn’t be able to write because they are coming from another direction; but also due to the understanding that David has, he can follow these flights of fancy, the piano almost becoming secondary percussion or perhaps adding to its repertoire. The sparse intro of “Weaving The Spell” enhances a mystical widescreen minimalism that is imbued with an air of expectation, its gradual percussive unfurling belying a slightly awkward gait; whereas the lush romance of “Stolen By The Breeze” does have a classic small hours feel to it, the minor chords withholding an ache that makes way for a sense of playfulness. It is interesting comparing the pieces with their inspiration and generally the feeling is very close, with “Okri” repeating then subverting a simple piano refrain in endless forms, while the abstract “Karesansui” is the one opportunity for the trio to interact around something less structured, each little motif drawing a fresh expression from the others. It is a slow, careful and respectful progression that abounds in space. “Prabaker’s Taxi” has a strutting no-nonsense bass that sends both the piano and the percussion off at dizzying tangents, then shape-shifting into a momentum-filled drive, while the wistful yearning of the bass on “Topaz” slows the heart back down, then tugs on the strings as they almost waltz around the room. The album doesn’t really sit still, but it is always redolent of an update on the kind of trio helmed by Bill Evans or Dave Brubeck; the ebullient “Flirting At The Acme Bookstore” had me thinking of Gus Kahn‘s “‘It Had To Be You”, while the lush romance of closing ballad “Laughing And Crying And Dancing And Waltzing” made me think of the film When Harry Met Sally, which in my opinion is no bad thing. There is a smile in the eyes and a careful invitation offered by both bass and piano to melt into somebody’s arms. It is a fine send-off for a collection of pieces that charms at every turn and shows just how intuitive these players are breathing life into Martin’s disparate ideas. A true delight. – Mr Olivetti. FREQ https://freq.org.uk/reviews/small-blue-furrow/

The slow tempos have so many subtle shades of meaning and emotional expression yet there’s also enough swing to make you click your fingers. A glorious piece of jazz from start to finish from this piano trio. Touching. – Paula Mcadam, ONLINE COMMENT

SMALL BLUE is a trio formed in 2023, versed in modern classical and contemporary jazz, reminiscent of the playing of Thelonious MONK, while oscillating on swinging rhythms on gentle ballads with Marianne WINDHAM on bass, Martin PYNE on drums and composition, and David BEEBEE on piano. Cinema, among other things, plays an important role for the composer, and the album FURROW is infused with it, featuring twelve delicate pieces by Martin PYNE and arranged by the trio, listening like a long 69-minute fresco, representing FURROW in equal interludes, all astonishing and moving. The luminous music flutters from one movement to the next, the pages are inspired, sparkling, lyrical, and celestial. Most of the pieces have a story, often inspired by cinema, imagery, novels or poems, works of art, memoirs Martin Pyne has read, or places he has visited.

The moving and dramatic 8th track, Prabaker’s Taxi 5:01, is one of them, where the music, with Marianne Windham’s sovereign bass line and Martin Pyne’s excellent drum solo, evokes the traffic chaos imagined in 1980s Mumbai, featuring a character from one of the composer’s novels, David Roberts’s novel Shantaram. Martin Pyne’s creative drumming in the introduction to The View From Your Heart 7:20 converges into an unexpected melodic progression. Drum solo continuing in the inventive spirit of the introduction.

On the 6th, Okri (5:17), a thrilling bass curve and drums open the way to pianist David Beebee’s fabulous improvisation. On the 9th, Topaz (5:43), a clear and poetic piano solo thanks to David Beebee’s touch. Honey Street (7:12), [11th] interdependence – the trio’s captivating complicity, as on Before The Thaw (6:49), written for a 1926 live silent film soundtrack with pianist Stephen Horne. A sublime bass solo by Marianne Windham and the exalted piano tones revolve throughout around sensitive, muffled sound images. FURROW is an album with precisely rhythmic beats, based on sustained and experienced improvisations. The trio delivers its careful responses, creating a powerful sound image based on a certain compositional construction. Twelve jazz escapes benefit from a clear recording, making them easily accessible to any good ear. The three musicians are remarkable, avoiding any ego-driven demonstration of virtuosity and reveling in this perpetual movement of the feelings of playing well together. Album recorded at Beeboss Studio in January 2025, mixed by David BEEBEE, photographs and cover art folding into three sections by Martin PYNE. A successful album designed to please without complacency, combined with a beautiful performance from the trio. (*** ½)  – Marie MESMER, HIGHLANDS MAGAZINE

Small Blue is the name of the trio formed in 2023 and consisting of David Beebee (piano), Marianne Windham (double bass), and Martin Pyne (drums). The latter is also the author of the twelve tracks on this fascinating Discus CD, entitled “Furrow.” Pyne himself states that he drew inspiration for the main themes from various non-musical sources—books, films, works of art, places he visited—which are evident in both the song titles and the brief descriptions provided by the author in the booklet. The music of Pyne and his two excellent companions responds to these inspirations by developing a sort of narrative vein, which takes shape in highly evocative themes, intense dialogues between the parts, and well-researched and developed variations, which nevertheless leave the necessary room—for a jazz trio—for improvisation. What distinguishes the music on “Furrow” is, in my opinion, a certain formal parsimony, an expressive concentration that avoids the “waste” of virtuosic passages in favor of a search for the essential—on various levels: melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, timbric—that gives each piece a well-defined individuality. A few well-calibrated notes are enough to hit the mark: Pyne knows this well, as do Beebee and Windham, whose music immediately captivates the listener and leads them into places, situations, and stories that are at times familiar and serene, at others disturbing and seductive, but always—so to speak—atmospheric and subtly evocative. – Filippo Focosi, KATHODIK https://www.kathodik.org/2025/08/31/small-blue-furrow/

Small Blue is a piano trio in the modern jazz tradition comprising David Beebee (piano), Marianne Windham (bass) and Martin Pyne (drums), but while one would imagine the bandleader and composer would be Beebee it is actually Pyne, who normally is more well-known as an improvising drummer. In many ways, the music hangs on the work of Windham, as it is often her bass which keeps provides the structure for the other two to work from, with her skeleton allowing the flesh to survive and for the result to stand up on its own. Space is a very important aspect of this album, combined with wonderful touches from all, meaning that to get the best from it is really does need to be played on headphones as otherwise some of the nuances would get lost in the ambient room noise. Although the musical style is very different, I did find myself being reminded of Roger Eno’s classic ‘Fragile (Music)’, where space combines with piano as an important additional instrument. Pyne must have been playing with a huge smile on his face while they were in the studio as there is a real feeling of happy enjoyment coming from those involved which is then replicated in the listener. Although the album is instrumental, there are notes within the digipak detailing what inspired each song, and it is certainly a very diverse list indeed. Delightful, enjoyable, relaxing, the world feels much more at peace while this is playing. Rating: 9/10 – Kev Rowland, HOUSE OF PROG https://houseofprog.com/small-blue-furrow-2025/