Effortless mainstream jazz eloquence has been pianist Kenny Barron’s calling card for 40 years. Without Deception renews the pianist’s dialogue with bassist Dave Holland (last revealed on the 2014 duo album The Art of Conversation), and the two are joined here by a long-time Barron regular, the classy drummer Johnathan Blake. Typically, the repertoire joins originals veering from the coolly cruising (the pianist’s buoyant bossa, ‘Porto Alegri’) to the ingeniously knotty (Holland’s old sextet piece, ‘Pass It On’), alongside imports from Ellington, Monk and Mulgrew Miller. ‘Porto Alegri’ shows just how compatible the participants are, in the laid-back fluency of the pianist’s variations over Holland’s spry bassline and Blake’s tone-rich and unobtrusively busy pulse. Barron’s ‘Without Deception’, a theme of bumpy descending-patterns resolving in a peremptory chordal full-stop, is attractively reminiscent of both Monk and Stan Tracey, ‘Speed Trap’ is a boppish sprint over a fast bass-walk that sets Barron eagerly rummaging in his bag of slinky-to-skiddy runs, terse outbursts, holding-pattern ostinatos, and clanking chords. Holland’s ‘Pass It On’ is a standout, not least because its rhythm-shifts pull Barron out of his comfort zones, and the imperiously staggering Thelonious Monk melody of ‘Worry Later’ has the band mixing Monkish brittleness with breezy salsa. For fans of Kenny Barron, a master of the art of acoustic piano-trio jazz, Without Deception is often a captivating set – only a few more provocative surprises in the repertoire choices could have pushed it up another notch.