Doors 7:45 PM, Music 8:30 PM – 2 sets of music
Line-up:
Loz Speyer – Trumpet
Dee Byrne – Alto saxophone
James Allsopp – Tenor Saxophone
Larry Bartley – Double bass
Gary Willcox – Drum kit
About:
Inner Space plays Jazz of a rare warmth and immediacy, in the form of compositions for improvisers with roots in both jazz and free playing. Speyer’s writing for the band creates space for the group to explore new areas and discover where the music might go… including a set of Jazz Portraits that celebrate the innovators of free jazz while drawing deeply on the Jazz tradition all the way back to New Orleans. Each piece evolves a life of its own as revealed in the here and now by these five distinctive musicians.
“One of the happiest evenings I’ve heard in jazz for many a long night… Music as rare as this defies description. Go along and see them!” – Karl Dallas, the Morning Star
Inner Space has been stirring things up lately as an augmented lineup playing the music of Sun Ra. On this night they return to their home ground as a quintet playing Speyer’s originals, this time with special guest James Allsopp – “perhaps the most gifted British saxophonist of his generation, not to mention the most adaptable” (Underscore music magazine). A star player in his own right, James also featured in Loz’s earlier Sun Ra project, Arkestration; and this new INNER SPACE collaboration is all set to fire up the bandstand with fresh ideas and new directions.
“Three recordings in 20 years for Inner Space… indicates a patient cultivation of their art. And the way that the group sound remains identifiable even though Speyer is the only player all the band’s incarnations have in common shows the value of a clear musical vision…
“The composing is reliably successful at offering engaging vehicles for extemporisation. But this dance between freedom and form needs more than that to succeed. Much of the time it relies on mainly motivic improvisation, with its particular demands. Speyer leads the way in meeting them. Rather like the great Bobby Bradford to my ear, just when you feel a solo excursion is beginning to fade he is able to apply the Ornette Coleman method of inflating another bubble of new melody, apparently at will.
“That’s something only the best players in this school can bring off consistently … As the CD testifies, it makes their live performance a richly rewarding affair. Hearing them do it again in person shows a band going from strength to strength.”
Jon Turney, UK Jazz News