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Loz Speyer
Trumpet, flugelhorn 
Composer, arranger, band leader, teacher   
Contact, bookings - lozspeyer@gmail.com

Loz Speyer has become known as a trumpeter/composer pushing all the boundaries with his own groups, ever since the mid 90s. His free jazz quintet Inner Space, and his Cuban-Jazz 6-piece Time Zone, both running since 2002, have toured all over the UK and each released a series of albums, earning critical acclaim and international reviews. His compositions Inner Space are structures for improvisation encompassing elements of swing, bebop and free jazz. His music for Time Zone is a ‘deep fusion’ of Cuban music and Jazz, with clave rhythms in odd meters and unusual time changes. He also writes and arranges for big groups – such as two sets of Sun Ra compositions for Merseyside Improvisers Orchestra, and his own compositions for the 12-piece composers’ collective Rare Mix (with Jason Yarde, Ben Davis, Julian Siegel…).

 

Starting out with workshops at University of the Streets in NYC, Jamey Aebersold Jazz summer school, and improvisation workshops led by John Stevens and later Phil Wachsmann, Loz has always embraced both Jazz and free improv, with quartets delving deep into Monk’s music and Ornette Coleman’s, free improv with maverick guitarist Hugh Metcalfe, and FreeTrio with the great free jazz drummer Tony Marsh. He continues to explore the openness of the Trio format in Tumbatareco, and large group improvisation with London Improvisers Orchestra and David Leahy’s Musicians in Space.

 

In the wider musical field, Loz has worked with Simo Lagnawi, Yann Tiersen, Sarah-Jane Morris, Amancio daSilva, Alex Maguire, Test Dept, and the Happy End; and in Cuba with Orquesta Chepín-Chovén, veteran trumpeter Inaudis Paisán, and Proyecto Evocación - a collaboration with master percussionist Rafael Cisneros, featured in Festival del Caribe 2009, and released on the album "Roots en Route - Raices en Viaje".

STORIES - some seminal learning experiences:

 

· As a teenager, informal jazz lessons with trumpeter Henry Lowther.

 

· Aged 21, a 3 months stay working in New York City - lessons with guitarist Bob Johnston, workshops at University of the Streets with Clarence Sharpe, and hearing the likes of Cedar Walton, Sun Ra Arkestra and Cecil Taylor Octet at close quarters in small venues.

 

· Aged 22, improvisation workshops with John Stevens at the London Musicians' Collective, when he was developing his Search and Reflect concept.

 

· Jazz theory classes with David Baker at the Jamie Aebersold summer school at a time when he was still developing his concept the Bebop Scale.

 

· 3 weeks' travel with a cassette recorder in Morocco including an all-night Berber wedding on new year's eve, during which it sank in that everyone there could accurately clap complex 6/8 polyrhythms, just for fun.

· Lessons with Charles Greene at Sweelink Conservatory, Amsterdam

· A year as composition and trumpet student on the Jazz Diploma course at the Guildhall School of Music with groups to compose for ranging from quartet to 10-piece to big band (1992-3) - and recording jazz orchestral suite "the Forest" with the big band.

 

· In Cuba 2005, finding out in a heated rehearsal situation that the clave really does change one's perception of the beat. And in a street gig by Pupy y Los Que Son Son, hearing 3000 people singing along with all the coros...

 

· Last but not least, 1991-2023 workshops and retreats with Qigong master Zhixing Wang, founder of the Hua Gong school of Qigong – and teaching the fundamental practise in evening classes and one day workshops.

top photo by Steve Cropper, lower one by Sara Haq

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