On his most recent albums as a bandleader, Polar Bear/Loose Tubes saxophonist Mark Lockheart has generally taken to writing with a broad ensemble canvas in mind. That's the case on CDs that feature his ‘Ellington’ septet and his writing for Germany's acclaimed NDR Big Band. But Malija, a drummer-less, transgenerational trio featuring pianist Liam Noble and bassist/Phronesis leader Jasper Høiby that was formed out of the quintet Lockheart led on 2009's In Deep on Edition Records, is a more direct and compact-sounding unit than he's previously been involved with. The poetically titled debut album The Day I Had Everything, also on Edition, mixes an intimate improvisational dialogue of wide-ranging influences from small-group blues, folk and rock idioms as well as straighter jazz traditions. The quality of the originals, shared out roughly between them, is as high as you would hope from three international class bandleaders. On Lockheart's opener ‘Squared’, Noble uses his sharp wit to persuade you that his piano comping is really a country-blues guitar on a Bob Dylan song. The pianist's quirky ‘Mr Wrack’ starts with Lockheart's Tim Berne-ish sax before taking a sudden unexpected twist with Noble bursting into a rock and roll piano boogie that's boosted by the strings of Ligeti Quartet and a sax that manoeuvres perfectly between glam rock, R&B and free bop. Lockheart's ‘The Pianist’ sounds like an old Tom Waits barroom blues while ‘Blues’, a very lovely minimalist miniature from Noble, lets you imagine a Nick Drake instrumental had it been remixed by Brian Eno. Høiby explores an area outside what you would normally associate with him on the otherworldly ‘Wayne's World’, while on ‘Unknown’ he applies that Phronesis-esque knack for making a hooky melody fit an unfamiliar groove. If Lockheart's coolly swinging, jazz standard-like ‘One For Us’ is in context just one of this playful recording's many surprises, that's the name of the game for this new top drawer contemporary trio.

Jazzwise spoke to Mark Lockheart about the album

When did the idea of you three playing in a band come about and what inspired it?

I'd been wanting to write for a small group for a while and loved the way Jasper and Liam played together on In Deep. I wanted a group that can be fluid and flexible, and the space and clarity of sound of a trio without drums has also appealed a lot to me, possibly inspired listening years ago to the Guiffre/Bley/Swallow trio and the Garbarek/Haden/Gismonti trio that recorded on ECM.

You have spoken about this band as a London jazz group. Can you elaborate on that?

Despite Jasper being from Denmark this feels like very English/London music to me. I first met Jasper while he was still studying at the Academy and all our early connections and playing opportunities were around London. Also I started my career playing in all kinds of bands in London in the 1980s, from reggae and township to indie bands like Stereolab and The High Llamas, all these experiences have influenced my writing and playing I'd say. The character of the compositions are another thing, to me they feel that they come strongly out of the eccentricities of multi-cultured London rather than New York.

What's the main way in which this band might differ from your other ensembles since Loose Tubes?

This band represents where I am musically at the moment I guess. Loose Tubes was obviously a big part of my early musical life, but I never wrote for them. Polar Bear has also inspired my music making in so many ways and I guess all these influences come in to play somewhere in a subtle way. Perhaps the greatest difference between the things I've done and Malija is the subtlety of the interplay between us, which you can only really do in a small ensemble. There's no trying to prove anything here, or trying to be impressive. It's all about what the music requires and that's what I love more than anything about jazz.