Spyro Gyra

Stories Without Words is an exuberant Spyro Gyra record. It was released in 1987. It's one of their best recordings that I have ever heard from them. It ranks up their with the best of them. Exs. Point Of View, City Kids, Fast Forward. It seems to place its musical emphasis on the drums/percussion section and the vibes/marimba. It's a terrific cd with extraordinary melodies.

Stories Without Words is an exuberant Spyro Gyra record. It was released in 1987. It's one of their best recordings that I have ever heard from them. It ranks up their with the best of them. Exs. Point Of View, City Kids, Fast Forward. It seems to place its musical emphasis on the drums/percussion section and the vibes/marimba. It's a terrific CD with extraordinary melodies.

Spyro Gyra's first album for MCA after their longtime label, GRP-Crescendo, was absorbed into its corporate parent, 1990's Fast Forward carries the curious band subtitle "featuring Jay Beckenstein." Saxophonist Beckenstein has certainly always been the band's leader, writing a good chunk of the material and producing the albums, but given that the lineup is basically unchanged from the previous few Spyro Gyra albums, the new nomenclature is puzzling. It also goes against Spyro Gyra's entire musical aesthetic, as the group's unabashedly commercial and melodic style works against the traditional jazz concept of soloists and sidemen. Everyone on Fast Forward plays the melody, the whole melody, and nothing but the melody, with no improvisations or sidebars.

In April 2013, Spyro Gyra entered a recording studio in Rhinebeck, NY, a small town in the Hudson Valley. Jay Beckenstein and his band set out to do something that they had never done before in their nearly forty year history – improvise with each other over three days and in the process write and record an entire new album. Beckenstein concedes, “It was a bit of a gamble but we’re lucky to have a loyal fan base who are probably going to be interested in what we’re doing. I was also fairly confident that whatever came out of it would be pretty close to the way we have approached our live shows for years.”

"A Foreign Affair" is the story of five guys and their love affair with the music of the world.
This album from the venerable jazz group Spyro Gyra takes you on a journey to the music closest to them from some places in some cases farthest from them.

1998's Rites of Summer is the album on which Spyro Gyra once and for all abandons every pretense toward being anything other than a slickly commercial instrumental pop outfit with occasional feints toward the smoothest of smooth jazz. As always with Spyro Gyra, the slower and more impressionistic tunes are much more interesting than the upbeat songs.

Breakout was the second Spyro Gyra release recorded in their very own Bear Tracks recording studio. Spyro Gyra actually made a really fun music video out of Bob Goes To The Store, a hard-driving jazz-rock tune with a great bass solo. This release is proof that great production values have the ability to transcend the media format.

Morning Dance is Spyro Gyra's most commercially successful album, released in summer 1979. The song "Morning Dance" was a major hit (Billboard #24 pop, #1 adult contemporary) in summer 1979. The album cover of Morning Dance had concept origination, design and art direction by Peter Corriston.