SECRET (SRCD 3-2). This contemporary jazz project features Martin Speake on alto saxophone, Nikki Iles on piano, Duncan Hopkins on double bass and Anthony Michelli on drums and cymbals. It was recorded in October 2000 at the end of a highly successful UK tour.

Martin met Duncan at The Banff Centre for the Performing Arts while studying with Steve Coleman in 1991. He recently performed with Anthony at the Jersey Jazz Festival. Duncan and Anthony perform together in various projects in Canada and already have a strong rapport in their playing. Martin and Nikki have performed and recorded together as a duo in the past and are now augmenting their music with these Canadian musicians.

NIKKI ILES (piano) Word had been out in musician's circles about Nikki Iles since way before she collected the John Dankworth Award for outstanding Individual at the 1996 British Jazz Awards. By then, as a member of the Creative Jazz Orchestra, she had already shared stages with Kenny Wheeler, Mike Gibbs, Vince Mendoza and Anthony Braxton, as well as composing her celebrated Printmakers Suite for an eight-piece version of that same band. She is a member of quartets led by Tina May, Geoff Simkins and Stan Sulzmann and has worked with most major British Jazz musicians on a freelance basis. As a composer she has received many commissions including The London Sinfonietta (Ellington Centenary) and New Perspectives (celebrating the work of Barbara Hepworth).

DUNCAN HOPKINS (double bass) Duncan Hopkins has been busy establishing himself as a bassist and composer around the world. While primarily self taught, Duncan has studied with the best, including Michel Donato in Montreal, Rufus Reid at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen inDenmark and Dave Holland in New York City. Aside from his own projects, he has become a popular sideman for a wide variety of artists such as: Mark Murphy, Lester Bowie, Kenny Wheeler, Peter Appleyard, and arrangers Robert Farnon and Ralph Carmichael. He is also the current bassist in the famed Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass.

ANTHONY MICHELLI (drums) Anthony is a graduate of Mohawk College, has studied at the Banff Centre and the Lake Placid Centre for the Arts and has a Bachelor of Music from theUniversity of Toronto specialising in Jazz Performance. He is also the recipient of the 1995 Jazz Report Award for National Post-Secondary School Musician of the Year. He has performed at various club and concert venues both nationally and internationally in large and small ensembles with various artists, some of which include: Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Maria Schneider Jim McNeely, Harry Connick Jr., Dick Oates, Ingrid Jensen, Pat Labarbera, Ed Bickert and Don Thompson.