Chris Speed’s superb trio with bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Dave King continues to write its band history with Despite Obstacles, their third album on Intakt Records. Releasing ten years after their debut album, Despite Obstacles is a testament to the band’s continued vitality. Speed, a recent member of the newly arranged The Bad Plus where he is reunited with Dave King in another working band, explains the constitutive impetus for this trio: “The initial idea for this trio was to play more swing-based music, to stay in a jazz-trio world.” and Kevin Whitehead adds in the liner notes: “Some saxophonists use trios to stretch way out. Chris Speed has other ideas. ‘I gravitate to getting to the point - featuring the song. I love to explore and open things up but there needs to be a directness as well.’ ”