"As springboards for melodic improvisation, the compositions matter greatly. Eight of the ten on Platinum on Tap are by Speed, the others being Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust, which is given a lovely reading, and Albert Ayler's Spirits. All are deliberately spare, sinewy and sinuous, sometimes laconic (Red Hook Nights), sometimes lively (Spirits and Arrival High). They're catchy, too. Speed mostly sticks to short phrases, building on melodic fragments ... he delivers his improvisations with wry insouciance in a style reminiscent at times of Lester Young. Surely you can't get more jazzlike than that"