| Product Summary | | Label: FONTANA | | UPC: 00053361312725 | | Release Date: 6/12/2007 | | Buy.com Sku: 204382786 | | Item#: M3KV3X | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 25050 | Format:  CD |
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| Song Listing |  |
Disc 1
| | Song Title | Sample | | 1. Simple Pleasures ~ Spyro Gyra |  | | 2. Get Busy ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 3. Jam Up ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 4. Left Bank, The ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 5. Funkyard Dog ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 6. Along For The Ride ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 7. Island Time ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 8. Wassup! ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 9. Easy Street ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 10. Winter Tale, A ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 11. Good To Go-Go ~ Spyro Gyra | | | 12. Newroses ~ Spyro Gyra | |
| | The entity known as Spyro Gyra is a marathon runner in the arena of contemporary jazz. For more than three decades, moving across a musical landscape marked by increasingly challenging terrain and accelerated change, they have maintained the well-deserved reputation as a viable and highly versatile creative force. Since their earliest recording in the mid 1970s, they have maintained a fresh approach to their craft by borrowing from a range of sources and distilling them into an unmistakable signature sound. This innovative and eclectic sensibility has earned the band nine Grammy nominations overall, and has fueled the sale of 11 million records - including one platinum and two gold records. In the midst of the achievements and accolades, Spyro Gyra keeps moving, having logged over 5,000 high-energy performances in their prestigious and prolific career. The band passes another milestone on this long-distance run with the release of Good to Go-Go on Heads Up International. The album is the band's twenty-sixth of their overall career and their fifth release on Heads Up, following on the heels of the Grammy-nominated 2006 release Wrapped in a Dream (Best Pop Instrumental Album).
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Spyro Gyra: Julio Fernandez (guitars); Scott Ambush (bass instrument); Bonny B (drums); Jay Beckenstein, Tom Schuman. | | Personnel: Julio Fernandez (guitar); Christian Howes (violin); Jay Beckenstein (saxophone); Tom Schuman (keyboards); Marc Qui¤ones (congas); Andy Narell (steel pan). | | Additional personnel: Christian Howes, Marc Qui¤ones, Andy Narell. | | Audio Mixer: Martin Walters. | | Recording information: HarariVille Studios, Weehawken, NJ. | | Photographer: Paul Greco. | | While hardcore jazz purists wince at a mere mention of them, the long-established fusion/smooth jazz combo Spyro Gyra continue spinning easygoing grooves for their fans. With their 27th album (not even counting collections), Spyro Gyra up the ante by adding some tasty world-music rhythms. By juggling the sparkling Caribbean steel drums of Andy Narrell, dancehall, mainstream reggae, and Spanish flamenco, they come up with the exhilarating panorama "Jam Up." The band plays with extra fire and spunk throughout without ever sacrificing their flair for bright, sunshine-y melodies and soulful soloing. | | Thirty-one years and 27 albums in (not including compilations), urban contemporary jazz unit Spyro Gyra are playing with the funky inspiration and clever melodic and rhythmic invention that have made them synonymous with the genre, but that they haven't displayed on their own recordings for some time. This is not to say the quintet have ever been completely off their game. They know what they do, and do it extremely well -- they can make smooth and groove-oriented records all day long -- but the sheer edge and shifty, even knotty melodic ideas on "Good to Go-Go" feel adventurous in contrast to the records they've made since the beginning of the decade where they've fused smooth jazz to some Caribbean, Spanish, and other kinds of world music as well as written and recorded with pop vocalists. The adventure here is in the groove itself. First there is the opener, "Simple Pleasures," (composed by saxophonist Jay Beckenstein) with its bassline-driven funky core, followed by "Get Busy" written by keyboardist Tom Schuman. It is really busy but keeps its flow, melodically and rhythmically, never losing the central beat though its dynamics change radically and its lyric core on the heads is full of complex changes. "Jam Up" features the steel pans of Andy Narrell and drummer Bonny B.'s backdrop (and irritating dancehall) vocals, but cooks with a reggae-propelled foreground, ending up in Spanish flamenco territory in the melodies. "The Left Bank," (Beckenstein) and "Good to Go-Go" (by bassist Scott Ambush) are down and dirty and full of compelling harmonic smoke if not all-out fire. The former is a funk tune with a slippery backbeat and beautiful counterpoint, and the latter pushes with killer B-3 playing by Shuman, slapping bass by Ambush and Bonny B.'s popping rimshots playing nearly against the melody. The blues groove in the latter tune (especially with Beckenstein's and Julio Fernandez's swinging, sting-happy six-string break, which gets touched off by Ambush loping both into his bass solo) kicks the whole thing up into a rhythm and groove burner. "Island Time," is a carnival tune with solid jazz chops, and once again Narrell's steel pans get a beautiful workout inside a nearly ecstatic lyric keyboard and saxophone head. Of course the rhythmic assistance by Marc Qui¤ones doesn't hurt texturally either. "Newroses," by Beckenstein and Fernandez, takes the album out on an even more complex set of changes than it strutted in with. It's got gorgeous, almost pastoral sections that come in just after the most complex and twist-and-turn headlines bring in a melody that breaks from a relatively simple groove and then unwinds into something other. According to taste of course, but Good to Go-Go is the most satisfying release that Spyro Gyra have released on Heads Up, and is a recording that brings that jazz back in a big way into the "urban contemporary" and "smooth" subgenres. ~ Thom Jurek |
Producer: Spyro Gyra |
Engineer: Eric Carlinsky |
| | Compilation Appearances |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 06/12/2007 | | Original Release Date : 2007 | | Catalog ID : 3127 | | Label : Heads Up Records | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Runtime : 68m : 56s | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00053361312725 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | JazzTimes (p.118)
- "[O]ne of the more artistically honest contemporary jazz jam bands....There are no dead moments on GOOD TO GO-GO, just a generous serving of chops." |
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| | Bio | | | Spyro Gyra To the members of Spyro Gyra, a mainstay of the contemporary jazz scene since the mid 1970s, the band?s longevity is no great mystery. ?You know, this music isn?t about the latest style,? says founder/saxophonist/producer Jay Beckenstein. ?It?s about people who spend a long time perfecting a craft. Following fashions is what puts an expiration date on you as an artist.? Born in Brooklyn, Jay Beckenstein grew up listening to Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie albums and started playing the saxophone at age seven. Beckenstein attended the University at Buffalo and started out as a biology major before changing to music performance. During summer breaks, he and an old high school friend, keyboardist Jeremy Wall, played gigs together back on Long Island. Wall attended college in California, and after both graduated, Beckenstein stayed in Buffalo for its thriving music scene where Wall eventually joined him. This band, whose odd name has since become world famous, was born simply as ?Tuesday Night Jazz Jams? when Beckenstein and Wall were joined by a rotating cast of characters. Tuesday just happened to be when they had the night off from playing music that paid their bills. Keyboardist Tom Schuman began sitting in when he was only sixteen years old. The assemblage?s growing 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 joke when I said ?spirogyra,? he misspelled it and here we are thirty years later. In retrospect, it?s okay. In a way, it sounds like what we do - it sounds like motion and energy.? 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 believed that we were springing from what Weather Report did,? says Beckenstein. ?I never thought in commercial terms. I just thought they were the next step in the evolution of jazz, and that we would be part of it.?
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