Spyro Gyra - Live Leverkusener Jazztage 2022

SETLIST 1. Walk The Walk 2. Groovin' For Grover 3. Shaker Song/Catching The Sun/Morning Dance 4. Cockatoo 5. De La Luz 6. Dancing On Table Mountain 7. Tempted 8. Old San Juan/Heliopolis Jay Beckenstein (saxophone) Tom Schuman (keys) Julio Fernandez (guitar) Scott Ambush (bass) Lionel Cordew (drums) It is not known if Jay Beckenstein was top of his class in biology class a long time ago. What is clear, however, is that the musician from New York came up with the idea of naming his band after a species of green algae in the early 1970s. Around 4,000 species of this species have been described, and Spyro Gyra – as the band and green algae are called – have been bustling about in the world of jazz just as consistently as green algae colonize water for almost 50 years. The American jazz fusion band has played over 10,000 gigs in five decades on six continents, has received multiple Grammy awards and has released more than 30 albums, received numerous gold and platinum awards and sold over ten million records. Fusion is a firm anchor in everything that Spyro Gyra have done in their long career. The musicians around the founding member, the saxophonist Jay Beckenstein, combine smooth jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, latin, pop and rock to create a sound that is above all one thing: stylistically open and diverse. “Art manifests itself in a variety of styles and contexts. That's why we started making music in the first place” – that's Spyro Gyra's philosophy. With creative energy, complex joy of playing and great musicality, Spyro Gyra are still on the move in the world of contemporary jazz on the stages of the world. And they always have something on their radar that also plays a role in the species of algae that gives them their name: biodiversity.