Mike Samuels

' Only two members, percussionist Bill Summers and bassist Paul Jackson, remain from the band that backed Herbie Hancock on his 1973 Head Hunters album, which simultaneously breathed life into the flabby and already moribund jazz fusion genre and demonstrated that jazz recordings could actually make money. But the band's attitude of joyful eclecticism and funky exuberance that animated the first project is still there (even if Hancock isn't), and it is abundantly apparent on "Evolution Revolution". …as with so many releases on the Basin Street label, there is an overall feeling of warmth and joy to this album that keeps you hooked. Recommended. ' Rick.Anderson@allmusic.com

Michael Osborn was John Lee Hooker’s guitarist for 13 years (I do remember seeing him with The Boogie Man at London’s Hammersmith Odeon) and he has a respectable discography himself, with three albums for Blue Rock’It between 1988 and 1996, and now releases on his own Checkerboard label. It certainly shows on this release, which is definitely modern blues but without any of the vacant posturing that term sometimes implies….

Pál Vasvári was a Hungarian jazz bassist, composer and music producer. He played electric bass as well as double bass. Vasvári studied double bass at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest and graduated in 1981. From 1979 he was a professional jazz musician and played as a bassist first in the group Bacillus and the Kőszegi Quartet. In 1984 he founded his first own band and intensified composing and arranging. In 1986, together with the pianist Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, the Magyar Jazz Quartet was born. In 2000 he founded the Vasvári String Trio with violinist Frankie Látó and guitarist Miklós Birta. He worked regularly with foreign musicians on stage as well as in the studio, such as Dave Samuels, Alex Acuña, Russell Ferrante or Mike Stern. His album Outsider by Pál Vasvari and the Soul Six Band was released in 2011.

Still, Spyro Gyra's music has more depth and kick than most of their brothers and sisters in the smooth or contemporary genre. Jay Beckenstein once again delivers some fine saxophone playing, Tom Schuman lays down nice keyboard textures, and guitarist Julio Fernandez enlivens several pieces with his tasty fretwork (and Benson-like scatting on "Sierra"). Got the Magic is full of accessible melodies and polished playing, adding up to a very enjoyable pop-jazz outing.