Spyro Gyra returns with their jazzy, snazzy kaleidoscope of sound

Anne Hosier

Friday, Sept. 12, 1997 | 9:53 a.m.

It was late at night in the small nightclub in Buffalo, where Jay Beckenstein and some of his musician friends jammed together each Tuesday night, when the club owner demanded that Beckenstein come up with a name for the group so he could advertise their performances.

" 'Give me a name or move on,' " Beckenstein says he was told.

Beckenstein, who had never really taken the pick-up band seriously enough to consider coming up with a name for it, jokingly suggested the first thing that came to mind: "Spirogyra." He didn't give the matter much more thought -- even after the clubowner began publicizing their performances under the misspelled name "Spyro Gyra."

"I didn't think there'd be any future in it," the sax player says. "I didn't even think we were going to put out a record, and then when we did put out that first record, I didn't think anything was going to come of it."

After that first record, "Spyro Gyra," took off, quickly followed by a second album "Morning Dance," which went platinum -- plus the realization that the group would forever be associated with the microscopic green algae whose lifecycle Beckenstein had documented in a college term paper -- Beckenstein was "mortified."

In the 20 years since then, he has come to appreciate the group's offbeat name, however.

"It took me awhile to get used to the idea, but in retrospect I'm really pleased with the name," he says. "It's proven to be something that sticks in the mind, people remember it, and there's a certain kind of energy and movement to our live shows that the word somehow sort of captures."

On Saturday, when the group gives an outdoor performance at Spring Mountain State Park, Las Vegans will get a chance to experience the dynamic style that has made Spyro Gyra one of the most popular contemporary jazz groups of all time and has kept them at the top of the jazz charts for 20 years.

"The outdoor jazz shows are one of Las Vegas' favorite pastimes," says Michael Schivo, who has been exclusively producing Spyro Gyra's Las Vegas gigs since 1982. Spyro Gyra sells out the 1200-seat venue "95 percent of the time." Schivo, who works with 30 to 40 other jazz artists besides Beckenstein and his group, attributes the group's popularity to "their ability to deliver an extremely exciting live show."

"They'll soothe you, they'll groove you to death, they'll funk you up," agrees Robbie Solomon, creator and host of "Jazz Progressions," a contemporary jazz show that aired on KUNV 91.5-FM for 15 years. He claims that seeing the band perform live at a venue like Spring Mountain State Park is a life-changing experience for "virgin Spyros." Solomon hosted the band's first Las Vegas show at Artemus Ham Hall, and will be doing the same this weekend.

"You have to experience the Spyro sound live to know what they're really all about," says Ric Gould, host of the contemporary jazz show "Sunday Morning Spotlight," which airs on the local radio station KXPT 97.1-FM Sunday mornings from 8 to noon.

Beckenstein and the other members of the band -- keyboard player Tom Schuman, guitarist Julio Fernandez, drummer Joel Rosenblatt and bass guitar player Scott Ambush -- are also looking forward to the performance, which will be a 20-year anniversary celebration.

"We do really, really well in Vegas," Beckenstein says. "In Vegas we sell as if it were a city 10 times the size."

Part of their popularity here has to do with the efforts of Schivo, Solomon, Gould and other local contemporary jazz fans, who have campaigned persistently to bring the band here and have given the members wide play on the radio.

But it also is a general reflection of Spyro Gyra's unusually wide appeal. With a unique sound that incorporates elements of Latin music, reggae, rock, blues, pop, funk and soul into a jazz base, the group has consistently been able to draw young crowds, in addition to the traditional jazz fan base, which has an age range of 30 to 50 years.

"There are a lot of teenagers out there that are hip to the sounds of Spyro Gyra ," Gould says. "Morning Dance," for example, not only sold over a million albums, it spawned a Top 40 hit single, which Gould says "was unheard of for a contemporary jazz band."

Growing up in New York, Beckenstein was exposed to a wide array of musical genres. "I'm in my mid-40s, so my musical imprint is with the late '60s, early '70s. That was John Coltrane and Miles Davis, but it was also Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and the Beatles," he says. Beckenstein's father, a "very good" amateur musician, and his mother, a performing opera singer, also strongly influenced the budding musician, who turned to classical music in college after abandoning plans to get a biology degree and go into medicine.

"I played a lot of avante-garde classical music when I was in college, which was very fascinating, and somewhat challenging, but also a bit dry." Beckenstein pauses. "Not a bit dry, very dry." He laughs. "And the very first thing I did when I got out of school was go play in blues bands, plain, old-fashioned, hit-em-over-the-head blues bands. And I got more goosebumps doing that than all the classical, fancy-schmancy stuff."

Still Beckenstein felt a pull toward jazz. "So Spyro sort of came out of trying to get the sophistication of jazz and classical music but not lose the goosebumps you get when you play the blues."

Although he never consciously set out to de-mystify jazz and make it appeal to a wide audience, that was the end result of his experimentation. "People have made all these artificial and somewhat arbitrary boundaries between styles, and you're asked 'well are you a jazz player, or a rhythm and blues player, or a Latin player, a pop player, or a New Age player?'

"I mean it's endless, and frankly what we do crosses every one of those lines and makes it impossible for me to tell you which one of those things we are."

Scott Keith, program director for KMZQ 100.5-FM in Las Vegas, who was formerly program director at KEYV, when the station had an all-jazz format, offers this definition of Spyro Gyra's style: "We call it accessible jazz, because it's jazz people can relate to. True jazz is considered to be kind of free-form. Contemporary jazz is more melodic, you can kind of sing along with it."

Beckenstein, who claims to have "a particular love for music without words because it really does leave something open to the imagination," nevertheless will occasionally incorporate background vocals into his pieces. And Spyro Gyra's latest album, its 20th release in 20 years -- which is appropriately titled "20/20" -- includes a version of that most singable classic "Sweet Baby James," by James Taylor.

The album also features tunes like "The Unwritten Letter," Solomon's favorite cut from the album which he describes as "a typical Jay Beckenstein soother."

"The way he arranges the sax, the mood, blowing sly, seductive, and breezy," Solomon quotes from a description on a press release. "That's what Jay's famous for, that's his trademark." The piece also includes "a romantic piano solo by Tom Schuman."

"I think it's the best thing they've ever done," says Gould of "The Unwritten Letter."

Beckenstein wrote the piece, but says that he wrote only about 30 to 40 percent of the songs on the album. "The other guys in the band all write, they all contribute," which helps the group continue to be creative.

After 20 years in the business, Beckenstein says the biggest challenge "is to come up with new stuff. But none of us have over the years burned ourselves out in any way, we're still enthusiastic people that love to play music," he says.

"Right after 'having a good marriage' and 'three beautiful children,' and 'breathing,' the next thing on my list (of what I'm thankful for) is 'having such a cool job.' "

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