A room of one’s own is essential for a writer, as Virginia Woolf insisted. The jazz equivalent is exemplified by the upstairs room of the Greenbank, the neighbourhood gastropub in the unpretentious Bristol’s district of Easton. It’s not a retreat for writerly seclusion. This somewhat typical jazz room, with a just about serviceable piano, somewhat battered furniture, air-conditioning in this Summer’s heat waves via a door to the fire escape, and an open-eared audience, is a space for developing music in performance.
That audience has grown to regular sellout numbers (all of 60 people) over the years the delightful piano trio Yetii – Alex Veitch at the keyboard, bassist Ashley John Long and drummer Alex Goodyear have been doing exactly that. Once a month, every month, they reconvene to try out new compositions, revisit some old ones, and refresh a few standards. Their residency has seem them settle into a deeply pleasing aesthetic, a listener-friendly, somewhat minimalist style that allows a clear view of strongly interactive improvisations.
It’s been a strictly live affair thus far, aside from a thirty minute recording from the same room and a clutch of videos filmed elsewhere. So it’s a pleasure to hear their first full-length release, crafted during two days in Cardiff University’s concert hall.
The results are gently beguiling throughout. The ten originals are all by Veitch, with an additional tune by Abdullah Ibrahim which, oddly, is included on the CD but not shared on Bandcamp. As the title suggests, Inner Worlds is reflective music. Slow to mid-tempos are the order of the day, along with hummable tunes, which unfold gently into more complex compositional statements. Veitch’s pieces are meticulously arranged by one with a great ear for small twists away from the listeners’ chordal expectations, a world away from the rudimentary head-and-solos pattern of less considered jazz offerings. They have distinct beginnings and endings, discernible mid-sections and improvisation when it comes, if it comes, steals up on the listener after the exposition in a way that holds the mood.
Every tune is enhanced by a level of performance that would be hard to reach for a trio with fewer air miles than Yetii have clocked up in that room in Easton. They play together in the telepathic fashion of the finest trios, without disguising their individual virtues. Veitch is as melodic an improviser as composer – his fondness for a tune is somewhat like Fergus McReadie’s though his soloing is less florid. Long is a considerable virtuoso, as witness his absorbing four-minute solo intro to Summer. On the other hand, on Resemblance he simply renders a written bass part that moves between four note figures and arco flourishes with perfect tone and time. Goodyear on drums has a dynamic sensitivity that serves every group he joins, but is particularly well-deployed here. He plays brushes throughout – save for a burst of hand drumming on the Ibrahim tune. His percussive commentary is always in keeping with the overall relaxed feel of the music, but he richly, but subtly, embroiders the rhythm on every piece.
Listen through, and the feeling might come over you that the whole performance is a little too perfectly measured, but the next tune will likely win you over. If you crave skronk, dissonance, or sturm und drang, other kinds of jazz are available.
For days that call for something a little more restrained, this will do very nicely indeed.
Inner Worlds is released on 5 October 2025
