This week, Ira Sternberg spoke with Jay Beckenstein.
Jay Beckenstein is a co-founder of Spyro Gyra, which will be performing June 17 at 7 p.m. as part of the free “Jazz In The Park” series at the Clark County Government Center Amphitheater.
Spyro Gyra is an unlikely story of a group with humble beginnings in Buffalo, New York who has continued to reach an international audience for more than forty years, resulting in sales of more than 10 million albums and having played more than five thousand shows on six continents.
Although few acts have accomplished this type of record, they have done it by constantly challenging themselves. An example: their last studio release, The Rhinebeck Sessions, was written and recorded over three days in the studio.
Born in Brooklyn, bandleader Beckenstein grew up listening to the music of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, and started playing the saxophone at age seven. He attended the University at Buffalo, starting out as biology major before changing to music performance (read classical and avant garde).
During summer breaks, he and an old high school friend, keyboardist Jeremy Wall, played gigs together back on Long Island. Wall attended college in California, and after both graduated, Beckenstein stayed in Buffalo’s thriving music scene, where Wall eventually joined him.
Spyro Gyra, whose odd name has since become world famous, was first known simply as “Tuesday Night Jazz Jams,” a forum wherein Beckenstein and Wall were joined by a rotating cast of characters. Tuesday just happened to be the night when most musicians weren’t playing other gigs to pay their bills.
Around this time, a young keyboardist named Tom Schuman began sitting in when he was only sixteen years old. This young man, of course, remains a member to this day.