Customer Reviews

Spyro Gyra

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Spyro Gyra is a well-rounded Spyro Gyra record. It was their debut album. It originally appeared back in 1976. This cd conveys a great mixture of sounds and is quite unique 70's Spyro Gyra. For being their debut album, this cd is really quite good.

My 3 favorite tracks on this album are 1,2, and 4. Shaker Song is their first song and it's great and has an extraordinary melody to it. OpusD'Opus is also a great track featuring a tight drums/percussion solo. Pygmy Funk is a strange, but good song. Strange is good, right. Throughout the whole cd there are great melodies and many different parts and sounds.

This is a good debut album by Spyro Gyra. It is a must for your Spyro Gyra library. It's a classic. However, some of the end songs can get minorly repetitive. All in all, it's a nice cd worth the purchase. The cover art is interesting as well. Thank you for taking the time and generosity to read my review.

I have to play devil's advocate and disagree with the reviews that claim that this debut was only OK! Yeah, yeah....I know they got better and BLAH...blah...blah. WELL...for this band's debut, this is a real treat. Spyro Gyra's debut is in my opinion, A BOLD EFFORT. These tracks still have enough of the REAL 70's FUSION flavored funky-ness to warrant my listening. Their 2nd release is also GREAT. I can't say I ever got pass the 2nd release, but I have at least tried to give the other releases a listen. My sister is an avid fan, but she is also into the SMOOTH JAZZ ilk. YUCK! Anyhow, pick this CD up and give it a good listen. I'm sure that you won't be disappointed.

Few sax players can crank out a melody like Jay Beckenstien. Nowadays, Jay is content to spew more "smooth jazz" melodies. Back in 1976, when this album was produced, there was no smooth jazz genre. Spyro Gyra more or less invented it. Sure, Gerry Mulligan and Dave Brubeck came close, but this was something new. Actually Shaker Song and Cascade are the only real smooth jazz tunes on the CD. The rest belongs more to the fusion realm, which is why I believe this recording is the best of Spyro Gyra's considerable work. Since it was the latter two songs that made them popular, their subsequent work tended in that direction, but for us hard-core fusion lovers, the rest of this CD rocks! Some fusion is said to be too sterile, but you won't find that here. These guys combined warm melodies with intense electronic sounds. There's something here for everyone.

Definitely not their best work. There are some good songs on here but their next few albums improve greatly. If you are new to Spyro Gyra, buy "Morning Dance", "Catching the Sun", or "Ingognito" but not this one. This is not a good example of what the band can do. They are still wet behind the ears on this one.

While Spyro Gyra has been seen mostly as being on the softer/smoother side of jazz for their entire career, if you're more of a jazz fan than a pop fan, their first album seems to be the only offering that they made to the jazz world. Their record sales prove that there are a lot of folks out there that really like the formula that they've been using after this record, but more records like this one would have given them certainly more respect in the jazz world as opposed to the music industry. Of course, they may not have been looking for that and that's really their business.

There is no questioning their music ability, there are all very accomplished musicians, but this is the only release that has actual jazz on it. It's not straight ahead jazz as I'm sure you already know, but a very good blend of the fusion that was out at the time. They actually had a unique fusion voice and gave it up to make pop records. Not sure why that happened.

If you are a pop fan and don't care for jazz records in general, there are only a couple of songs on this record that you will like. You may want to skip it. If you are a jazz fan and have kept seeing this name over the years, this is one to get. Any of the others will leave you wanting. Let's be honest, they are pop records made with instruments that have been traditionally used to make jazz records. Who ever came up with the "Smooth Jazz" name could have done everyone a favor and just called it "Instrumental Pop". It certainly would have cut down on a lot of confusion.

This was their first album (although it looks like the CD was released in 1994, it was on tape in 1978). Fortunately, their music improved with age (i.e., Carnival, Catching the Sun, Morning Dance, Point of View).

Spyro Gyra began there life in 1978 with this self titled album. As far as fans of their next albums Morning Dance and Carnaval go they will find just what they are looking for in "Shaker Song",the first song on the album as well as the best available introduction to their sound that we've all become familiar with. One thing that is special about this album is that no-Spyro Gyra still hadn't found there musical legs so to speak so many of the songs on this album are far more abstract and exotic in texture then anything they would later do.One superb example of this is "Opus D' Opus",a multi-section funk/fusion number the drives a relentless rhythm home."Pygmy Funk" takes on a similar lead as the Steely Dan-ish keyboards give wat aburptly to wild sax and drum soloing.On "Mead" and "Galadriel" the band try their hand at some bass driven funk grooves and even add a great melody to the same sound on "Leticia"."Mallet Ballet" and "Cascade" take a gander into a softer side of things but still-the style (especially on the drumming on ALL the songs here) is not typical of Spyro Gyra's sound. This is the album that most closely links Spyro Gyra (in the 70's anyway) to the first generation of fusion. And taken as such it may take fans of the bands later,more melodic style of music somewhat aback. But if you really enjoy Spyro Gyra in musical terms and have a musically open mind it's very likely you will love this CD.

I bought this on vinyl shortly after it first came out. I hadn't really been a jazz fan, but was into rock-fusion at the time. This CD combines the elements of fusion, funk, latin, and jazz. Spyro Gyra was virtually unknown at the time and seemed to want to keep anonymous. Perhaps, that's why I like this CD so much. This is long before the days of "smooth jazz" radio stations...that have play lists and feature artists like Phil Collins and Celine Dion. Commercialism soon overtook Spyro Gyra and a lot of what they did after this became repetitive and annoying...perhaps, that is why this one of my favorites from Spyro Gyra...Success and commercialism hadn't kicked in yet!

The first Spyro Gyra recording. The year was 1978. Spyro Gyra had been calling themselves a group since 1974, but had not gone into the studio to record anything yet. The result was, a hit, a "soon to be classic," and seven other fusion/progressive jazz pieces. The hit was Shaker Song. And it opens up the album. It's very tame and "radio fit," and it pretty much confuses the listener to believe the rest of the album would sound like this. It's latin rhythm, and infectous beat, comes together to bring you a Spyro Gyra classic. The song got its name from the drummer, (Tom Walsh) who had used a shaker in his right hand while playing the drums at the same time. The album goes into a deep left turn with Jay Beckenstein's O'pus D'opus. It's very funk influenced. Some other good tunes on this album are Pygmy Funk, and Mallet Ballet. Mallet Ballet would become a Spyro Gyra standard. You can find a live version on the Spyro Gyra Live EP. This album is allright, but lacks something special that many other later Spyrp Gyra albums would have. This is not smooth jazz! This is the birth of a tight band. Funk, progressive jazz grooves dominate this album. There's just something that lacks in this album, but over all, it's worth the listen.

There's not that much to offer here on this release. In fact, I think I can safely say, if I was around when this cd came out, and I listened to it, I wouldn't really be looking foward for their next release. I basically wouldn't be a Spyro Gyra fan. Luckily, my first album was Collection, which featured top notch Spyro Gyra, and I heard how good Spyro Gyra actually was. Perhaps the only song on here that went on to be a Spyro Gyra standard is Mallet Ballet, and maybee Shaker Song. Some of this album reminises their Carnaval album. Opus Do' Pus, I think. I wouldn't run out to get this cd, but rather just get it to complete your collection.