A Night Before Christmas due in stores September
23, 2008
As the seasons change and the end of the
year draws near, even the most forward thinking and cutting-edge
artists take a nostalgic moment to count their blessings.
Spyro Gyra has spent more than three decades pushing the boundaries
and definitions of jazz beyond the commonly accepted parameters.
In so doing, they continue to forge an edgy, enduring sound
that incorporates some of the best elements of jazz and merges
them with R&B, pop, Latin and various other styles.
But it isn’t always about breaking new ground. All five
of these talented innovators – saxophonist Jay Beckenstein,
pianist Tom Schuman, guitarist Julio Fernandez, bassist Scott
Ambush and drummer Bonny B – agree that there’s
a time and a place for reconnecting with tradition and celebrating
the fundamental values at the core of their music and their
lives.
This year, Spyro Gyra celebrates the holiday season with A
Night Before Christmas (HUCD 3145), a collection of eleven
tracks that capture the yuletide spirit with a decidedly traditional
jazz vibe. read more
A Night Before Christmas due in stores September 23,
2008
As the seasons change and the end of the year draws near, even
the most forward thinking and cutting-edge artists take a nostalgic
moment to count their blessings. Spyro Gyra has spent more than
three decades pushing the boundaries and definitions of jazz
beyond the commonly accepted parameters. In so doing, they continue
to forge an edgy, enduring sound that incorporates some of the
best elements of jazz and merges them with R&B, pop, Latin
and various other styles.
But it isn’t always about breaking new ground. All five
of these talented innovators – saxophonist Jay Beckenstein,
pianist Tom Schuman, guitarist Julio Fernandez, bassist Scott
Ambush and drummer Bonny B – agree that there’s
a time and a place for reconnecting with tradition and celebrating
the fundamental values at the core of their music and their
lives.
This year, Spyro Gyra celebrates the holiday season with A
Night Before Christmas (HUCD 3145), a collection of eleven
tracks that capture the yuletide spirit with a decidedly traditional
jazz vibe.
“We’ve always had a yearning to do a record that
was kind of a straightahead record – or at least something
closer to a straightahead record than what we normally do,”
says Beckenstein. “But it’s always been very difficult
to make that work in the context of what we do on most of our
records. But a Christmas record was sort of an opportunity to
really go someplace a little more subtle, a little more acoustic
and more traditional.”
Beckenstein brings his own perspective to the project. “Christmas
has always been a huge part of my life,” he says. “There’s
so much about it that’s universal, separate and apart
from the religious aspects. It’s a celebration of all
the things that are good and redeeming about humanity –
compassion, hope, generosity, forgiveness, renewal, family,
all those things.”
The traditional “O Tannenbaum” opens the set with
an improvisational vibe. “It was set up as kind of a jam,
and it went to some nice places,” says Beckenstein. “It
sounds sort of contemporary, without really losing the acoustic
feel of the song.”
Tony Award winning vocalist Christine Ebersole delivers a simple
and pure rendition of “It Won’t Feel Like Christmas,”
a new song that is destined to become a Christmas classic. “These
days families are often so far apart physically and then there
are people like us who travel for a living. It’s important
to get home, to be home. Then there are the folks who just aren’t
going to get home, like the situation a lot of military families
are finding themselves these past few years.”
No Christmas music is complete without bells, and guest vibraphonist
Dave Samuels – founder of the acclaimed Caribbean Jazz
Project – evokes the sound of holiday chimes on two tracks,
“Winter Wonderland” and “Carol of the Bells”
(the latter includes engaging phrases and snippets of the timeless
traditional “What Child Is This” and Rodgers &
Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things”).
Guest vocalist Janis Siegel – a founding member of Manhattan
Transfer – joins drummer Bonny B on the mischievous Frank
Loesser wintertime duet, “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”
Beckenstein recalls: “We wanted to go in sort of an Ella
Fitzgerald direction, and that’s Janis’ turf big-time.
She just does it so beautifully. When we got her into the studio,
it was a breeze. The song is very much about projecting a personality,
and Janis has personality to burn. She brings all kinds of fun
and spunk to this track.”
If Christmas is about tradition, then Spyro Gyra has tied both
together in a festive package. “There’s something
about traditional jazz that harkens back to my childhood,”
says Beckenstein. “On top of that, I have many nostalgic
memories of Christmas. The holiday, and this kind of music,
have created some of the fondest memories of my youth. These
connections make this a very heartfelt record for me and for
everyone in the band.”
Put another log on the fire. A Night Before Christmas
might well be the best musical moment of this holiday season.
Since their earliest days in the mid-1970s, Spyro Gyra has always
been about looking ahead, breaking new ground and seeking ways
to reinvent themselves and their sound. However, this contemporary
jazz quintet – saxophonist Jay Beckenstein, pianist Tom
Schuman, guitarist Julio Fernandez, bassist Scott Ambush and
drummer/percussionist Bonny B – has always understood
the importance of not only staying connected to the roots of
jazz, but also staying connected to the core values that define
them as people.
What better time for this kind of reflection and renewal than
the holidays? This year, Spyro Gyra celebrates the season with
A Night Before Christmas (HUCD 3145), a collection
of eleven tracks that capture the yuletide spirit with a decidedly
traditional jazz vibe.
“We’ve always had a yearning to do a record that
was kind of a straightahead record – or at least something
closer to a straightahead record than what we normally do,”
says Beckenstein. “But it’s always been very difficult
to make that work in the context of what we do on most of our
records. But a Christmas record was sort of an opportunity to
really go someplace a little more subtle, a little more acoustic
and more traditional.”
Born in Brooklyn, Beckenstein grew up listening to the music
of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy
Gillespie, and started playing the saxophone at age seven. Beckenstein
attended the University at Buffalo, starting 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’s thriving music scene, where Wall eventually
joined him. This band, whose odd name has since become world
famous, was first known simply as “Tuesday Night Jazz
Jams,” a forum wherein Beckenstein and Wall were joined
by a rotating cast of characters. Tuesday just happened to be
the night when the two musicians weren’t playing other
gigs that paid their bills. Around this time, a young keyboardist
named Tom Schuman began sitting in when he was only sixteen
years old, and remains a member to this day.
The group’s increasing 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 began as a joke. 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.”
Morning Dance, released in 1979, included the title track which
became a Top 40 single and proved to be the band’s breakout
song. To this day, the Calypso-inspired track is still in heavy
rotation on contemporary jazz stations. Meanwhile, the heavy
touring that began around this same time has yet to stop, and
a few new faces have entered the picture along the way: guitarist/vocalist
Julio Fernandez joined the band in 1984, while Scott Ambush
has been the bassist for 17 years.
Spyro Gyra signed with Heads Up International in 2001 and recorded
In Modern Times, an album that spent 64 weeks on Billboard’s
Contemporary Jazz chart, peaking at #2. Two years later, the
band released Original Cinema, followed by The
Deep End in 2004. Both albums logged considerable time
on the Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz charts. The GRAMMY
nomination for Wrapped in a Dream in 2006 reaffirmed
the undeniable fact that these veterans are still formidable
contenders in the contemporary jazz arena.
The band continued its ongoing process of musical exploration
with the 2007 release of Good To Go-Go in the summer
of 2007, an album that captures a more live groove with the
help of Trinidad-born Bonny B. Good To Go-Go scored
two GRAMMY® nominations in December 2007: Best Pop Instrumental
Album and Best Pop Instrumental Performance (the latter nomination
for the track entitled “Simple Pleasures”).
“We’ve always had this belief that the thing we’re
doing in any given moment is the best we’ve ever done,”
says Beckenstein. “And we always want to maintain that
philosophy, because that’s what drives us forward. We
haven’t succumbed to the mentality of ‘Let’s
just play the hits and collect the check.’ We never saw
ourselves as a pop band. We’ve always seen ourselves as
a forward thinking creative outfit. After 30 years, it’s
still very interesting and exciting.”
And festive, too. If Christmas is about tradition, then Spyro
Gyra has tied both together in a shiny package. A Night
Before Christmas might well be the best musical moment
of the holiday season.
