Free Hoops is the Courvoisier Trio's third album, and picks up directly from where the last one, D'Agala, left off with another sequence of originals dedicated to Courvoisier's friends and inspirations – also her cats. The jazz cats name-checked include Claude Thornhill, Mark Feldman and John Zorn, which also gives an indication of the music's stylistic reach: pastoral tone colours mixing it against the jagged collage structure of the Zorn-inspired piece, where tastes whizz past like the spin of the conveyor belt at Yo! Sushi.

There is much playing of considerable charm. ‘Requiem d'un songe’ is constructed over a bass line borrowed from Thornhill that manages, at once, to be major and minor, an ambiguity that Courvoisier works with in her thoughtful, light-touch solo. There is also playing of considerable grit. The title track, the dedication to violinist Mark Feldman, scoops notes from the keyboard like the dry scrape of violin pizzicatos; and on the piece dedicated to the feline cats, ‘Lulu Dance’, Courvoisier, Gress and Wollesen bounce information between them like a pinball machine. The album was recorded in a single day and occasionally the trio sound like they're skimming the surface off a tune in a rush; but there remains much to enjoy.