photo by Steve Cropper
LOZ SPEYER QUARTET
Loz Speyer – trumpet/flugelhorn
Kristian Borring – guitar
Nick Pini – double bass
Andrea Trillo – drums
Here I am returning to the trumpet-guitar quartet with a great new band, and discovering again the fresh and open sound generated by these pieces from my first quartet, as well as some new ones. Listening closer, what is new here is the time structure: there are rhythmical devices and changes have never been used before, and demand something extra of the musicians (including myself). Improvising in these forms doesn’t work if we just fall back on something we already know – we can use jazz language for sure, but the forms require us to stay centred and be fully present to hear what is actually happening in each moment in the music, in real time. Maybe that’s the secret behind the sparky quality that people hear – it is a new sound, not heard before.
Having said all that, the music grew out of the same roots and influences as that fresh wave of jazz that grew up in the 1960s, a stage or two after the initial bebop revolution – plus certain ‘old world’ influences that went into the brew, from North Africa, Spain, Eastern Europe, and yes Britain…
The earlier Loz Speyer Quartet, with guitarist Andy Jones and NYC drummer Tony Bianco, toured the UK and recorded my debut album “Two Kinds of Blue”, released on 33 Records in 1999. Here are some reviews from the album:
“The conversational energy of the performers, and the hipness of Tony Bianco’s drumming, lift the music above the regular classic-jazz homage. Speyer, who has listened to Miles Davis’ pre-electric style with intelligence and imagination, is excellent throughout.”
John Fordham, the Guardian
“A set of immaculate hard bop compositions… bright trumpet with a tone combining generous doses of Brownie and hints of Woody Shaw or mid-period Miles… The band is both fluid and tight, able to navigate the quick-shifting rhythms and accents of Speyer’s songs quite nimbly.”
David Lewis, Cadence USA
“Sparky, open, attractive jazz with all the punch and accessibility customarily associated with rock music.”
Chris Parker, the Times
“An excellent, gutsy, hard edged quartet session…”
John Lewis, Time Out
TIN/BAG the bi-coastal duo of California trumpet player Kris Tiner and New York guitarist Mike Baggetta, deals with a music that is spare and ethereal, exploring the spaces between jazz, folk and traditional music, and contemporary composition. Since 2004 Tiner and Baggetta have toured extensively, presenting their original music along with inventive renderings of works by Bob Dylan, Kitty Wells, Carla Bley, Willie Nelson, Leonard Cohen and others. Their 2005 debut CD There, Just As You Look For It on pfMENTUM Records was met with enthusiastic reviews and continues to receive international airplay. Tin/Bag’s second CD And Begin Again, released in 2007 on Evander Music, featured two extended works for quartet with virtuoso L.A. clarinetist Brian Walsh and acclaimed NYC jazz percussionist Harris Eisenstadt. Their 2011 album Bridges, recorded with the support of a Subito grant from the American Composers Forum, was named as one of the ten best jazz recordings of the year by critic Hank Shteamer of Time Out New York. Their current release is The Stars Would Be Different, a collection of new compositions and country standards recorded live in the extraordinary acoustics of an old church in Bakersfield, CA. The digital album is available now on Epigraph Records.
