Time Zone at Map Cafe

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.... 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....

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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.... 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 leaders compositions and the bands execution, a sense of hard-edged modernity that has a side-winding thrust reminiscent of Dave Hollands 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

Speyers 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. Speyers 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 ‘Nows the Time II’. His collaboration with master percussionist Rafael Cisneros (of Ballet Folklorico Cutumba) resulted in the CD “Roots en Route” by Proyecto Evocacion (2010 Spherical Records), recorded with a Cuban rhythm section following live appearances in Santiago's Festival del Caribe, 2009.

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