Small Blue

Small Blue: Martin Pyne, drums, composition; David Beebee, piano; Marianne Windham, bass.

Percussionist, composer and improviser Martin Pyne, when not working with contemporary dance or as a silent film accompanist, performs solo sets, leads bands and collaborates with a range of musicians and artists.

Formed in 2023, the jazz trio Small Blue is a result of just such a collaboration with David Beebee on piano and Marianne Windham, winner of the 2025 Parliamentary Jazz Award for Services to Jazz, on bass.

Small Blue is a piano trio in the classic modern jazz tradition featuring material including straight ahead swinging tunes and beautiful ballads, as well as African inspired grooves - but always with a twist.

Martin says that most of the tunes he composes have a back story, often being inspired by novels or poems he's read, movies or art he's seen or places he's visited.

The result is music that is intimate but ranges far and wide in tempo and mood - by turns lyrical, atmospheric, groovy and mischievious - and takes in heartfelt ballads, mysterious grooves, evocative atmospheres and melodic swing along the way.

'There's nothing loud, nothing showy, nothing esoteric. Just a delight in the deft touch of a stick or mallet, a finger or a wire brush on metal, skin or wood and in the process of transforming sound into a  sense of movement.' Richard Williams The Blue Moment

Sample the music here: https://tinycurl.com/ua6p5ndm