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I know I have a lot of fans, but so does Spyro Gyra, and I am one of them! They always deliver tasty arrangements to their incredible music. Another thing I appreciate is their artistry. Their music is like works of art.– George Benson

Milestone celebrations like a 50th Anniversary deserve a little sonic souvenir swag, which longtime loyal fans and newcomers to the Spyro Gyra experience alike can enjoy on Jubilee. With the exception of the vibrant, high-octane (and perfectly titled) new track “50/50” – a riff on the title of the band’s 1997 release 20/20, which marked 20 years and 20 albums – the new collection features 15 songs that capture the band’s ever-expanding palette in its first decade of recording (1978-87). “This set is not only a wonderful way of tying up our first 50 years,” bandleader Jay Beckenstein says, “but also an exciting opportunity for fans, especially those who came on board from later generations, to immerse in our first decade, which represent the founding of our overall sound. I consider the 40 years that followed a refinement of that core aesthetic. This time is when we developed our style and the language we play. It’s when the identity of Spyro Gyra was born. The band has always remained true to the foundation of those initial ten years.”

Spyro Gyra has long been known to its peers in the contemporary jazz world as a “well-oiled road machine” due to its relentless schedule of 51 years of performing. To date, they have logged more than 10,000 shows on six continents and released 36 albums, garnering platinum and gold records along the way. Spyro Gyra rose from humble beginnings in Buffalo, New York in 1974 to their current international prominence in the jazz world. Every year, they continue to exhibit how to remain among a relative handful of artists who will be able to say that they have worked constantly in their 51 year -career into the year 2025. Their energy and joy in concert match their unmatched musicality.

“My hope is that our music has the same effect on the audience that it does on me,” says Beckenstein. “I’ve always felt that music, and particularly instrumental music, has this non-literal quality that lets people travel to a place where there are no words. Whether it’s touching their emotions or connecting them to something that reminds them of something much bigger than themselves, there’s this beauty in music that’s not connected to sentences. It’s very transportive. I would hope that when people hear our music or come to see us, they’re able to share that with us. That’s the truly glorious part of being a musician.” A Historic Reflection of Spyro Gyra – by Jonathan Widran, Jazziz Magazine

While so many of today’s smooth artists seem to have been created of the format, by the format and for the format specifically, Beckenstein is proud to realize that Spyro Gyra and artists of their generation were the innovators around whom radio rushed to create a formalized genre. Somehow, they responded to what Samuels calls the “Spyro Gyra Salad Bowl.” “When we first started,” Beckenstein recalls, “a lot of the jazz purists got on our case about calling what we did jazz and now it’s funny to hear us getting respect from the same people. Like, wow, what you guys did was so much more intriguing than some of the stuff they hear today. Purists tend to be protective of their art form, and at first, they didn’t understand a band mixing in all these extraneous elements. “But,” he adds, “the reason I got into jazz at all was the freedom it gave me from the strict structures of pop. It’s ironic that it’s more the jazz community who is insisting on certain rules or forms in order to be considered jazz. If that now means that you can’t call what we do jazz, then call it something else. All I ask is to be judged not by style, but by content. Art manifests itself in a multitude of styles and contexts. Isn’t that why we started to play in the first place?”

Spyro Gyra’s is music whose core and desire was never for strictly commercial purposes. There was no calculated effort to sell millions of records, sell out concerts throughout the world, and inspire a whole new generation of musicians seeking an eclectic road of their own. When Beckenstein and Wall first started jamming back in Buffalo, they just did it because it was a blast, pure and simple. They made lyrical, jazzy music for a few folks at Jack Daniels, developed a high energy live gig, one thing led to another, and suddenly, instrumental music was never quite the same. The fun was suddenly not just theirs, but ours as well.

“Aside from one of the most amazing live shows in instrumental music and killer, killer songs, Spyro Gyra endures as an audience favorite because they created an original style that sounded like nothing that came before it.” - Art Good, creator and host of Jazz Trax