Spyro Gyra

About

One of the most beloved fusion bands in the world, Spyro Gyra continues to find the sweet spot between jazz, funk, and new age music. Nominated for multiple Grammy awards, the group hasn’t lost any of its swagger more than 40 years after their founding.

Spyro Gyra is a jazz juggernaut who show no sign of slowing down. Over the last 40-plus years, they have performed over 5,000 shows, released 31 albums, selling over 10 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 Jazztimes called “inspired”. Travis Rogers of the Jazz Journalists Association picked it for Jazz Album Of The Year.

Theirs is an unlikely story of a group with humble beginnings in Buffalo, NY who has continued to reach an international audience over nearly forty years, resulting in sales of over 10 million albums and having played over five thousand shows on five continents. They have accomplished this due to a forward looking approach combined with the work ethic of an underdog, always challenging themselves to do something new while never resting on past success. It has proven to be a recipe for longevity for this jazz group while music has gone in and out of styles in ever shorter cycles. 2014 marked forty years from their start in a Buffalo club where they were first known as “Tuesday Night – Jazz Jam.”

“My hope is that our music has the same effect on the audience that it does on me,” says group leader Jay Beckenstein. “I’ve always felt that music, and particularly instrumental music, has this non-literal quality that lets people travel to a place where there are no words. Whether it’s touching their emotions or connecting them to something that reminds them of something much bigger than themselves, there’s this beauty in music that’s not connected to sentences. It’s very transportive. I would hope that when people hear our music or come to see us, they’re able to share that with us.”