Time Zone

Loz Speyer - trumpet, flugelhorn, Martin Hathaway - alto sax, bass clarinet, Stuart Hall - guitar, Davide Manington - double bass, Andy Ball - drums, TBC – congas / percussion

Imaginative fusions of Cuban dance forms and pungent contemporary jazz.... Martin Hathaways soulful alto sax sound and Speyers trumpet phrasing (like Miles Davis in a salsa brass section) make a flexible front line, and on tracks such as the opening Conjunto and the jubilant Miracle Maricel, a restless, New York-downtown contemporary-jazz feel blends effectively with the intricate Cuban grooves... A typically shrewd fusion of the time senses of two quite different cultures.
John Fordham, the Guardian

East London 6-piece Time Zone has been mixing traditional Afro-Cuban music with contemporary Jazz for some years now. The new album “Crossing the Line” is the result of much experience and in-depth research into both musical languages, Cuban as well as Jazz. Cuban elements are re-assembled, as in collage, or mutated to fit odd meters more common in eastern Europe, yet still with a Cuban feel... the groove can change in mid flow, like suddenly turning a corner, a new view opening up, another way of looking at things.

“There is an intriguingly saturnine quality in both the leader’s compositions and the band’s execution, a sense of hard-edged modernity that has a side-winding thrust reminiscent of Dave Holland's ensemble at times. Time Zone is an ensemble led by a trumpeter/composer who has absorbed the essence of Cuban music and distilled it quite cunningly into an improvisatory context with no compromise to either culture. The result is gritty, graceful sounds with a dark-light intensity.”
Kevin Legendre, Echoes

Speyer's compositions for Time Zone express some of the surreal complexity of life in Cuba, and of the interaction and collision of Cuban culture with his own. And the music draws fully on the capabilities and diverse experience of six great musicians:

"a very good album that takes a refreshingly original approach to Cuban music. Speyer’s compositions are consistently interesting with their disparate elements and regular twists and turns and the playing from a supremely accomplished band is superb throughout. “Crossing The Line” is a worthy addition to a diverse and intelligent body of work."
Ian Mann

Since 2001 trumpeter/composer Loz Speyer has spent some extended periods in Santiago de Cuba, studying percussion, recording and transcribing, and working with local musicians. In 2005 he recorded three Time Zone pieces with a Cuban band, one of which was later released on the Babel label compilation ‘Now’s the Time II’. His collaboration with master percussionist Rafael Cisneros (of Ballet Folklorico Cutumba) resulted in the CD “Roots en Route” by Proyecto Evocación (2010 Spherical Records), recorded with a Cuban rhythm section following live appearances in Santiago's Festival del Caribe, 2009.