NEW YORK (Top 40 Charts) - With over 10 million albums sold,
Spyro Gyra continue to break new ground with the February 25 release of
"Original Cinema" (Heads Up), their most complex and challenging album to date. Though just as accessible as anything else they've done,
"Original Cinema" defies preconceptions about who
Spyro Gyra is and, more crucially, what jazz is all about.
Marking the follow-up to the enduring group's 2001 release In Modern Times, which spent 64 weeks on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Album chart where it peaked at #2, "Original Cinema" will be one of the first albums available as an Enhanced Super Audio CD in 5.1 Surround (*SACD). This optional format will provide enhanced CD capability for home computers and feature a short video, biography, soundbites and more.
The songs of "Original Cinema"--a whirlwind of funk, post-bop, Latin and category-defying influences--feature such movie-themed titles as "Dream Sequence," "Big Dance Number," "Close-Up," "Film Noir," "Getaway" and "Flashback." Of this significant film inspiration, Spyro Gyra founder, producer, chief songwriter, and saxophonist JAY Beckenstein says: "Instrumental music has always been very evocative for me. When I write, I can envision scenes--some of the most interesting music out there now is in film scores." He continues: "Some of the material we came up with was a little dissonant and disjointed, but that gives these tunes more depth."
Beckenstein says writing with this soundtrack state of mind gave Spyro Gyra "an opportunity to do unusual things by visiting unusual moods, darker places and more angular melodies because movies in fact present a very wide palette of subjects and emotions."
"Original Cinema" represents the band's second album for independent label Heads Up. Beckenstein revealed the move back to an indie, where the band started back in the late '70s, gave the group "some control of our destiny. If we were at a major record label, they wouldn't know what to do with us. Working with Heads Up is great. The people there really love music and that's not always the case in this business. More importantly, they understand and support what we're all about." As "Original Cinema" attests, this empowering arrangement has fueled Spyro Gyra's creative momentum.
Through Spyro Gyra's blend of virtuosity, stylistic range, accessibility and tireless marathon tours, they've built a massive global following that will see them perform over 100 shows around the world next year, including Europe, South America and Asia (dates TBA). Joining Beckenstein in the rock-solid ensemble are keyboardist Tom Schuman, guitarist Julio Fernandez, bassist Scott Ambush and drummer Joel Rosenblatt.
Spyro Gyra's lasting success is attributed to the group's uncommon approach to jazz. Beckenstein says that since the band formed in 1975, they "believed that being unique was good. Today so many artists sound the same or are trying to sound like somebody else."
That same philosophy was applied to the making of "Original Cinema", the most vivid picture to date of a great band at the peak of its powers.
