Back in the mid to late 1970s, there was no such thing as “new age” or “smooth jazz.” Anything that might have been pigeon-holed into that category was simply classified as “jazz”—okay, still pigeon-holing, I’ll give you that. But these were the albums where musicians took some serious chances, not caring about any specific rules placed upon music.
For Jay Beckenstein and what would become a revolving crew of musicians collectively known as Spyro Gyra, this was their opportunity to make their sound and mark known to the world—something they did successfully in 1979 with the title track to their sophomore album Morning Dance.
Their self-titled debut, initially released on their own Crosseyed Bear label in 1977 and later picked up by Amherst (and, soon after, Infinity) in 1978 introduced Beckenstein and crew’s sound—and, make no mistake, it’s pleasant enough. But, while it does do its job in helping to lay the groundwork for what would become smooth jazz, it doesn’t do enough to truly make Spyro Gyra stand out as a band one would want to be on the lookout for.
It’s not like this was the kind of album that was going to light the Billboard charts on fire, if we’re 100 percent honest with ourselves. But, in an age where artists like Chuck Mangione were making names for themselves on the charts, it wasn’t completely unheard of. So, if anything, Spyro Gyra was an album that was striking while the iron was—if not hot, still fairly warm.
And, if you were to base an opinion solely off the album’s opener “Shaker Song,” you’d have been able to make a strong argument that Spyro Gyra indeed had the right idea. A powerful first number, it keeps the listener interested throughout the track—and makes you wonder if the energy level is successfully kept high for the remainder of the disc.
That, actually, becomes the problem with Spyro Gyra—namely, most of the remainder of the album tends to blend into itself, where one track is indiscernible from another. Sure, you have moments like on “Mead” where the funkiness of the song helps to pull it to the forefront. And, I have to admit, the album’s closer “Galadriel” has an ethereal beauty to it thanks to the keyboard work from Jeremy Wall. But, for every moment of strength, you have others like “Mallet Ballet,” “Opus d’Opus” and “Leticia”—which, while not bad songs in any stretch of the word, just don’t capture one’s interest in the same way.
Maybe this reviewer is simply missing something—after all, Spyro Gyra, in all its incarnations, was putting out albums well into the 2010s (their last release coming in 2019, not including compilations). And this disc actually broke into the lower portion of the top 100 of the Billboard charts, so there had to be something there to account for some level of success. Nobody is saying this is a bad album; Beckenstein and crew all prove themselves to be master musicians throughout the course of these nine tracks.
I’m simply saying this: in a crowded musical field, one has to do something to not only hook the listener, but keep them invested from the first to the last song on an album. Spyro Gyra is a pleasant enough listen, but there’s not a whole lot making it stand out to me, aside from the stray track or two. It’s one I would gladly listen to if it were to come on via a random play, but I honestly wouldn’t see myself searching this one out to intentionally listen to.