Spyro Gyra Releases 30th Album, “The Rhinebeck Sessions” (Avail Now) | Announces Tour Dates

Add to that legacy The Rhinebeck Sessions, the band’s 30th album and its first to be written entirely in the studio over the course of just three days. In the early days of April 2013, founder and saxophonist Jay Beckenstein and the members of Spyro Gyra entered a recording studio in Rhinebeck, NY, a small town in the Hudson Valley not far from Woodstock. Beckenstein and his bandmates – Tom Schuman (piano & keyboards), Julio Fernandez (guitars), Scott Ambush (bass) and Lee Pearson (drums) – set out to do something that they had never done before in their nearly forty year history – improvise with each other over three days and in the process write and record an entire new album.

“As I thought about doing another record, I asked myself, what is it that makes Spyro Gyra so special?” Beckenstein explains, “I decided that it was the fact that we have been together so long that the communication between us has become almost mystical. Our ability to improvise on the fly has become so strong because we have played together so much. It was time to go into the studio with very little planned and see what might come out of it.”

What came is The Rhinebeck Sessions, a collection of mostly uptempo, often funky pieces that stands toe to toe with the best of this group’s prolific output. Adding a further dimension to the story, The Rhinebeck Sessions is the band’s first fully independent release since their 1977 eponymous debut.

The resulting collectively composed tunes clearly demonstrate what the group’s fan base already knows – that Spyro Gyra can play just about any sound and are not shy about delivering virtuosic performances.

As 2014 will mark the band’s 40th Anniversary as a working group and the 35th Anniversary of their Platinum-selling Morning Dance, the band has planned concerts worldwide where they plan to play Morning Dance in its entirety.  For more info on these concerts and all of Spyro Gyra’s upcoming activities surrounding The Rhinebeck Sessions, visit www.spyrogyra.com

Release Date: September 24, 2013

SPYRO GYRA TOUR DATES

Oct 2-3 – Boca Raton, FL – Jazziz Nightlife
Oct 4 – Macon, GA – Douglass Theater
Oct 12 – Florence, OR – Florence Events Center
Oct 13 – Portland, OR – Alberta Rose Theater
Nov 2 – Las Vegas, NV – Santa Fe Casino
Nov 8 – Kiawah Island, SC – Weekend of Jazz
Nov 20 – La Paz, Bolivia – Circulo de Oficiales del Ejercito
Nov 22 – Santiago, Chile – Cupula Parque O’Higgins
Nov 23 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – Teatro Coliseo
Dec 6 – Washington, DC – The Hamilton
Dec 7 – Cranston, RI – Park Theater
Dec 13 – Buffalo, NY – Buffalo State PAC
Dec 14 – Charlotte, NC – Blumenthal PAC

2014 TOUR DATES
MORNING DANCE 35th Anniversary Tour