Two for Tuesday: Spiro Gyra

Two for Tuesday 1 Minute

The band Spiro Gyra was founded in Buffalo, New York in 1974. It was a group of jazz and rock musicians that played in the local bar scene. When asked by a bartender what the band’s name was, founding member and saxophonist Jay Beckenstein told him “spirogyra,” after a form of algae. The bartender wrote the name as Spiro Gyra, and the rest is history. Currently, the band consists of Beckenstein, keyboardist Tom Schuman, bassist Scott Ambush, guitarist Julio Fernandez, and drummer Lionel Cordew. Their most recent album is 2013’s The Rhinebeck Sessions, a live album; their most recent studio album is 2011’s A Foreign Affair, according to their website.

“Morning Dance” was the title track from their 1979 album. It reached #24 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, while the album reached #27 on the Top 200 albums chart.

“Cafe Amore” was from the band’s fourth release, 1980’s Carnaval. It reached #77 on the Hot 100 and #14 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

Spiro Gyra, your Two for Tuesday, October 9, 2018.

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

23 thoughts on “Two for Tuesday: Spiro Gyra”

  1. Pingback: The “Geez, Is October Halfway Through?” Week That Was – The Sound of One Hand Typing

  2. I have to admit they are not my favourite because it’s that type of jazz I’m just not into. Funny, it reminds me of the opening of the tv show Taxi that was never my fav

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    1. The theme for “Taxi” was a tune called “Angela” by smooth jazz keyboardist Bob James. It was a staple on smooth jazz stations (of which there are now very few). I’ll be talking about Smooth Jazz on Two for Tuesday for the next few months, though probably not for all of 2019. Hopefully you can find something you like out of that…

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  4. I remember Spiro Gyra from when they were playing around Niagara Falls and Buffalo. They were doing gigs around town when I was hittin’ the bars back then. I never went to see them. Wish I had but you know me, I was rockin’ out…
    Thanks for featuring them. They did our city proud…

    Michele at Angels Bark

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    1. When you’re young, it’s pretty easy to only want to hear one kind of music or another. I was heavy into blues when I was in college, practically to the exclusion of any other kind of music. Chicago, of course, was the best place to hear it, but there were so many other kinds of music being made at the time: Cheap Trick was starting to make the rounds, Jim Peterik was always doing something, we had a few jazz clubs. Wasn’t into anything but the blues…

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  5. I love Spiro Gyra! They’d completely dropped off my radar over the past few years though. I’m so glad you posted this and that they’re still playing. Thanks for the reminder about a great band.

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  6. I remember them from playing some shows in Memphis – I didn’t go, but did see the announcement in a local events publication or the lineup for the Beale Street Music Festival or something many years ago. Thanks for stopping by my place! I am taking part in Mary’s Rocktober MusicFest hop, but will have to take an unintended short hiatus till Monday – I accidentally let my domain name expire and it probably won’t be back online till Friday or so. Have a great week!

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  7. John,

    Thanks for sharing such soothing mewsic. I’ve tried to juggle a few different things today now to break away to try to catch up a little in Blogosphere and this is a nice distraction. :)

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    1. What can you do? Sometimes the other guys are better and/or have more experience. The Braves had a ton of young guys and only a couple that had postseason experience. It was kind of like 1991 but without Smoltz or Glavine.

      I don’t think bands pay as much attention to the artwork as they did in the vinyl days, plus in these downloadable music days liner notes seem to have gone away: iTunes and Windows Media Player have noplace to put them, and there’s nowhere online that has the information. I grew up wanting to know who played on a track, and that hasn’t gone away. Some MP3 downloads have a “booklet” with all that stuff, but most of them don’t. That’d be a project I could get behind.

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      1. At least the Yankees are out now so I can concentrate the voodoo on just the Dodgers. The artwork on the new Steve Perry album is very rich with meaning. On the CD it is small but on the vinyl copies you can really tell the symbolism he is using.

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        1. So it’s the Brewers or Dodgers versus the Astros or Red Sox. I can tell you that Fox Sports wants the Red Sox and Dodgers, so I’m rooting for the Astros and Brewers. I don’t like Joe Buck.

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            1. You know, his father was Jack Buck, who’s a Hall of Fame announcer. Who knows what happened? They used to team Joe up with Tim “Motormouth” McCarver. Those were the nights you turned off the sound.

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