Line up: Stuart Hall (guitar), Martin Hathaway (saxophone), Maurizio Ravalico (conga), Dave Manington (bass), Andy Ball (drums)
Loz Speyer’s Time Zone launches the new album “Clave Sin Embargo”, following its release on Spherical Records – and kicks off their forthcoming UK Tour. The third Time Zone album, “Clave Sin Embargo” is a deep fusion of Cuban music and Jazz – soulful, catchy and rhythmically provocative.
“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.” – Kevin Le Gendre, Echoes
“Speyer’s ear for the exultant horn harmonies of traditional Cuban dance music informs a probing crossover composer’s intelligence, in which time signatures are shuffled and idioms overlaid… Nobody writes world music quite like Loz Speyer, and he’s long deserved a bigger stage, and the resources to match.” – John Fordham, the Guardian
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Speyer’s particular Cuban-Jazz crossover grew out of the collision of Cuban culture with his own when between 2000 and 2009, the London based trumpeter spent a total of over a year in Santiago de Cuba, studying Afro-Cuban music, working with local Son bands, collaborating with Cuban musicians – and starting his own Anglo-Cuban family. His compositions took a similarly unexpected turn, and back in the UK he began touring and recording them with Time Zone.
The present incarnation of Time Zone came together for a UK tour in 2012, and features maverick guitarist Stuart Hall, ebullient saxophonist Martin Hathaway, conga maestro Maurizio Ravalico, bassist Dave Manington and drummer Andy Ball.
Their interaction is the key to this joyful and highly rhythmic music, drawing collective on a range of experience that includes work with Mike Westbrook, Django Bates, Jesus Alemani, Hermeto Pascoal, Clifford Jarvis, Gwilym Simcock, Iain Ballamy, Roberto Pla, Kenny Wheeler, Jamiroquai, Radiohead, Yann Tiersen and Tim Berne…