![r/spyro r/spyro](https://i.redd.it/sg12jqvxmbr61.png)
![r/spyro r/spyro](https://i.redd.it/qcz6xsq6jmh71.png)
The first few years saw the group’s identity split into a dynamic live act and a producer centric recording process, borne out of the rotating cast of characters in the jazz jam beginnings.
![r/spyro r/spyro](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBbuXRyXoAEZf-U.jpg)
I just thought they were the next step in the evolution of jazz, and that we would be part of it.” “I believed that we were springing from what Weather Report did,” says Beckenstein. In their earliest days, Spyro Gyra took their cues from Weather Report and Return to Forever – bands whose creative flights were fueled by a willingness to do things that had never been done before. I said ‘spirogyra,’ he misspelled it, and here we are thirty years later. The group’s increasing popularity – combined with the purchase of a new sign for the club – prompted the owner to insist that Beckenstein come up with a name for his band. It was a complete shock when word of our psychosis got out and we started packing them in!” “We were the kings of self-indulgence, but eventually we earned our right to charge a quarter at the door. “Don’t forget the interminable Dead-like solos we were taking,” Beckenstein cracks. This young man, of course, remains a member to this day. Around this time, a young keyboardist named Tom Schuman began sitting in when he was only sixteen years old. Tuesday just happened to be the night when most musicians weren’t playing other gigs to pay their bills. Spyro Gyra, whose odd name has since become world famous, was first known simply as “Tuesday Night Jazz Jams,” a forum wherein Beckenstein and Wall were joined by a rotating cast of characters. I was in the horn sections around town, backing some great vocalists.” “After being confined to classical music for so long, it was heaven. “Not many people know it, but Buffalo was like a mini Chicago back then, with a smoking blues, soul, jazz, even rockabilly scene, of all things,” Beckenstein muses. Wall attended college in California, and after both graduated, Beckenstein stayed in Buffalo’s thriving music scene, where Wall eventually joined him. During summer breaks, he and an old high school friend, keyboardist Jeremy Wall, played gigs together back on Long Island. Beckenstein attended the University at Buffalo, starting out as a biology major before changing to music performance (read classical and avant garde). As Spyro Gyra looks forward to 2020 and beyond, they show no sign of slowing down. Over the last 40+ years, they have performed over five thousand shows, released thirty-one albums (not counting “Best Of…” compilations) selling over ten million albums while also achieving one platinum and two gold albums. Although few acts have accomplished this type of record, they have done it by constantly challenging themselves as is evidenced by their last studio release “The Rhinebeck Sessions” which was written and recorded over three days in the studio.īorn in Brooklyn, bandleader Jay Beckenstein grew up listening to the music of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, and started playing the saxophone at age seven.