BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Find Local//findlocal.community//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:19700308T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:19701101T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:24e136a8-c703-4724-a221-c3103fda9b1a@findlocal.community DTSTAMP:20261012T015742Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261112T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261112T210000 SUMMARY:Spyro Gyra DESCRIPTION:You might think that Spyro Gyra’s leader and saxophonist Jay Beckenstein might welcome a break in its 45+ years of non-stop\, year ro und performances. After all\, much of his adult life has been centered a round the recording and performing activities of this now legendary grou p. Renowned bass player Will Lee once referred to the ensemble as a “wel l oiled road machine” as a tribute to their daunting schedule\, bringing their music to fans around the globe. So what has it been like to have this well oiled road machine in the garage due to the pandemic? “Good!” Beckenstein laughingly replies\, “A little more oil couldn’t hurt. But y ou know\, it’s too long now. The first few months of it\, after over 45 years of touring without really having a break\, it felt good to not be touring. Even if it was to realize how much I love being out there. But now\, It’s been too long.” Fans of the band are familiar with the group’ s rise to international prominence from humble beginnings in Buffalo\, N ew York. That’s when a few area working musicians arranged for a weekly gig of playing less commercial music in a local club on everyone’s night off. So humble a beginning\, there was no name for the band so they wer e only known as “Tuesday Night Jazz Jam”. Soon the word got around and t he core group was joined by many of the city’s musicians to come and hav e some fun. And customers started showing up\, too\, prompting the club owner to press Beckenstein for a band name for the club’s new sign. Beck enstein offered up this late night\, tipsy answer\, “You can call it ‘sp irogyra’”\, an algae that he had studied once. The next week\, he came b ack and there it was\, misspelling and all\, and so it began in 1974. Fa st forward to the band having logged over 10\,000 shows on six continent s\, having released 35 albums garnering platinum and gold records along the way and here they are\, once again looking forward. Speaking of the band’s return to live audiences\, Beckenstein admits\, “It’s been a long time since we played. We’ll do some fan favorites but we’re a bunch of wanderers by nature. We have a relatively short attention span as a band and we always will want to be doing our favorites too. That’s all I kno w right now. But it will be happy. We will be happy.” Regarding the pand emic that forced this hiatus\, Beckenstein admits\, “It made me apprecia te my previous social world. So much of my previous social world was the band. Because we’re geographically distant from each other\, it has bee n a very hard time being apart. If the pandemic has done anything\, it’s made me appreciate how much the band had become my family.” Prompted to capsulize this musical family\, guitarist Julio Fernandez is “Mr. Espri t”\, the guy who brings spirit to the band\, the guy who imbues just abo ut every note he plays with pure emotion. When he plays\, I really feel it.” Bassist Scott Ambush is “an amazing musician and technician. He is the person in the band who is always encouraging us to push the envelope .” Drummer Lionel Cordew “is the engine that always works. Lionel is the backbone of the band as we all rely on him providing us rock solid stru cture for us to play on.Chris Fischer is the guy that who just joined th e band and we were lucky to find him. He’s so talented and we look forwa rd to his contributions.” 2019 provided the latest release from the band \, Vinyl Tap\, a collection of mostly Classic Rock covers\, the promotio n of which was cut short by the COVID health crisis. “I see Vinyl Tap as being a bit of a one off\,” Beckenstein observed. “I’m very proud of Vi nyl Tap. I think we did a really nice job on interpretations. Everybody played great but as I said I think it’s a one off. It was really great f un doing other peoples’ material but that ultimately is not how I identi fy Spyro Gyra. Ultimately\, we’re a band that writes its own material.” Beckenstein further describes their approach\, “First of all\, it’s inst rumental. That covers a lot of ground right there. The music has element s of Jazz\, rhythm and blues\, Latin music and world music. It’s instrum ental\, it’s improvisational\, there’s a lot of teamwork in the band and the music is really honest and coming from us and what we want to say. Jazz is a chain of generations\, where one generation goes to the next g eneration and goes to the next generation. That’s really all a Jazz musi cian can aspire to\, to be a link in that chain of the Jazz tradition an d that people after him used that as a link for their link. We came alon g imbuing Jazz with other musical styles\, one of the first but not the first. But it wasn’t that new. Dizzy Gillespie had done Latin music and Brazilian music was being done by Stan Getz. The idea of getting away fr om traditional mainstream Jazz by combining it with other things was alr eady alive and well. I believe we were very much in the tradition.” With respect to the long term future for a band with a 50th anniversary not too far off\, Beckenstein allows\, “As long as I can perform at a high-l evel\, I would never think of retiring. But I can’t tell you what it wou ld be like if I was to have to continue as a lesser version of myself. T hankfully\, that hasn’t happened yet. So all I am thinking about right n ow is that I can’t wait to see the people again.”\n\nTickets: https://ww w.ticketmaster.com/spyro-gyra-charleston-south-carolina-11-12-2026/event /2D0064E7B302D1EA\n\nhttps://findlocal.community/event/24e136a8-c703-472 4-a221-c3103fda9b1a LOCATION:Charleston Music Hall\, Charleston\, SC URL:https://findlocal.community/event/24e136a8-c703-4724-a221-c3103fda9b1 a STATUS:CONFIRMED SEQUENCE:0 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR