As Spyro Gyra contemplates this year's milestones to its storied career, it is tempting to fall back on the Grateful Dead lyric, "What a long strange trip it's been." How many bands in instrumental jazz or any kind of music, can boast a 40-year career, gaining and keeping fans over almost four decades? Yet Spyro Gyra shows no sign of slowing down, having garnered Grammy® nominations for four consecutive albums in the last ten years while touring worldwide year-round.
When this group first gathered in a club in Buffalo, New York to found what was to be known for a while as "Tuesday Night - Jazz Jam", no one would have predicted their eventual success. They would go on to release thirty albums of new material with sales of over 10 million copies while having played over five thousand shows in this remarkable career.
2014 presents a dual milestone year that begs for some observance of this almost singular achievement in modern jazz history. First is that it marks forty years as a band, something that very few bands get to say. The second is the 35th anniversary of Morning Dance, the musical achievement which truly introduced them to the world at large. To observe these dual anniversaries, the band will perform the entire Morning Dance album in sequence for the first time ever in its career.
Among those highlights will be selections from The Rhinebeck Sessions, the band's 30th album and its first to be written entirely in the studio over the course of just three days. In the early days of April 2013, founder and saxophonist Jay Beckenstein and the members of Spyro Gyra entered a recording studio in Rhinebeck, NY, a small town in the Hudson Valley not far from Woodstock. Beckenstein and his bandmates 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. What came is a collection of mostly uptempo, often funky pieces that stands toe to toe with the best of this group's prolific output, which garnered a multitude of rave reviews.
"My hope is that our music has the same effect on the audience that it does on me," says group leader 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. That's the truly glorious part of being a musician.”
Tickets for Spyro Gyra are $42.00 for Premium seating, $37.00 for the Orchestra and $32.00 for the Balcony. Purchase tickets by visiting www.thenewtontheatre.com or contact the Box Office at 973-383-3700.
The historic Newton Theatre, located at 234 Spring Street in Newton, NJ, was founded in 1924. Revitalized and fully renovated, Sussex County's premier entertainment venue reopened in 2011 as a 605 seat capacity live performing arts center. With it's rich history and diverse programming The Newton Theatre is essential to the buoyancy of New Jersey's Skylands region. More information about The Newton Theatre may be found by calling 973-383-3700 or by visiting its website at www.TheNewtonTheatre.com.