Spyro Gyra - S & D / Classic or Dud?

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Thanks to the majik of your local file-sharing program, I recently downloaded a copy of an album I loved as a kid - Spyro Gyra's Morning Dance! I really love this stupid thing. It holds up pretty well. At base they wrote bright melodies, and presented them in little tightly arranged instrumentals. "Morning Dance" the track made it to #24 on the pop charts, and as soon as you hear those steel drums you know you're in for a cool Caribbean treat. The track that really kicked my ass all over again was "Jubilee" though. It has this great forward momentum and this cool wah-ed out guitar solo. I really think @d@m and perhaps JaX0N might dig this one, if they found it for a dollar. I would put this record on that "Greatest Lite-Jazz Album of the Last Twenty Years" thread, except it's 26 years old!

Was anything else by them any good? I haven't heard a single thing other than this record.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:50 (twenty-one years ago)

funny, i was about to open this thread and laugh, but then i saw that you posted it and now i'm not gonna write it off just yet. i'll do some downloading tonight and get back to ya

― El Janko (JasonD), Thursday, 3 February 2005 03:22 (twenty-one years ago)

haha, well, I'm not like wholeheartedly endorsing them or anything. It's kind of a nice little nerf jazz album though. yeah J, try and check out the tracks "Jubilee" or "Morning Dance", I think you might like them! Not really too far away from the liter end of the late-70s CTI spectrum, really.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Thursday, 3 February 2005 03:54 (twenty-one years ago)

ok, so i probably wouldn't go out and buy this album any time, even if it were a dollar, but,,,,,, this isn't terrible. listening to Jubilee and it is definitely a direct decendent of miles and weather report. i've never really understood everyone's hatred for fusion, but now i guess they're probably talking about this kinda stuff. if i were on hold, i wouldn't necessarily hang up.

wait a second. just got to Morning Dance, starts out nice with some clapping, but then the fucking soprano sax. WHY?! why do i hate it so much? i think it's Coltrane's "Live in Seattle" or something, one of his later dates, and he's playing some mean, ferocious shit, but he's playing with a soprano and it sounds like Kenny G to me. everything else about this isn't so terrible, the smooth rhodes, the steel drums or marimba, but the fucking soprano sax. guh!

― El Janko (JasonD), Thursday, 3 February 2005 05:12 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

I just bought a copy of *Carnival* for $1 over the weekend; have not put it on yet. Bought the "Morning Dance" 45 in 1979; somehow managed to confused it both with Chuck Mangione's "Feel So Good" (which I also confused with Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street") and Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Computer Game" (which it probably had nothing in common with, and which I also confused with Mi-Sex's "Computer Games") at the time. Have not heard it, or them, in years. Should I??

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 22 March 2005 18:10 (twenty years ago)

Underrated band. Some great stuff. Mezzoforte were better though.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:12 (twenty years ago)

i've been looking for a record by Chuck Mangione's brother, Pat, for the longest time. it's got a slum village sample on it.

― The JaXoN 5 (JasonD), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:39 (twenty years ago)

shit, that's Gap Mangione. maybe that's why i've never found it. boo

― The JaXoN 5 (JasonD), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:40 (twenty years ago)

and the album is called Diana in the Autumn Wind, but it's $160 on gemm.com!! fuck that.

― The JaXoN 5 (JasonD), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:46 (twenty years ago)

five months pass...

Spyro Gyra is probably the best thing that ever happened to music

ATTENTION MODERATOR: YOU ARE A FAG. AND JAXON IS BALD.

― IP Loonie's, Wednesday, 24 August 2005 21:13 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

Just played Carnaval (their 4th LP, apparently, from 1980) for the first time in, uh, 4 1/2 years I guess. (See upthread.) And it doesn't make the keep-this cut. Like the three Latin-tinged cuts okay ("Dizzy" with that "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard" Brazilian stuff happening underneath, "Cashca" which gets a wee bit fusion-rocky toward the end, "Carnaval" itself), and I suppose I have to admit that "Cafe Amore" has a melody seeing how it hit #77 on the pop singles chart, but mostly the album's a total snooze (seems like it could have been theme music to '70s TV dramas maybe); either that, or I am just not smooth enough. If there was just one song half as catchy as "Morning Dance" (#24 pop, #1 adult contemporary, 1979), I'd go for it. But as is, I just know I'm not gonna be putting it on ever again. A shame, because that bird of paradise on the cover is very colorful.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 December 2009 02:52 (sixteen years ago)

six months pass...

Nate Chinen of the NY Times takes a smooth jazz cruise with Spyro Gyra (who, of course, insist they're not smooth jazz):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/arts/music/23jazzcruise.html

― xhuxk, Friday, 23 July 2010 17:06 (fifteen years ago)

thirteen years pass...

"Morning Dance" has to be one of THE all time bargain bin/charity shop regulars. Not sure I've ever heard it but I suspect I possibly have. It reached no. 11 in the UK album charts in 1979, how did that happen?

https://i.discogs.com/Y2L9SLCLfyR6Hl3EFMt9D4YmfbdLsPJ_yhk1i2rg-e0/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:592/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE3MzI5/MzUtMTUxODc4NzM2/NS05MjI0LmpwZWc.jpeg

― man in suit and red tie raising his fist (Tom D.), Saturday, 16 March 2024 16:11 (one year ago)

... OK, so the title track was Top 20 hit. I'm away to listen to it and see if it rings any bells.

― man in suit and red tie raising his fist (Tom D.), Saturday, 16 March 2024 16:14 (one year ago)

... none the wiser tbh, it's so smooth it's impossible to tell whether I've head it before.

― man in suit and red tie raising his fist (Tom D.), Saturday, 16 March 2024 16:19 (one year ago)

I remember when you used to hear that one all the time.

― three of the doctor's valuable bats are now dead (broom air), Sunday, 17 March 2024 16:38 (one year ago)

four weeks pass...

a theater i went to ten years ago in bloomington, in just sent me an email ad for spyro gyra's 50th anniversary tour

it's fascinating to discover what marketing email lists i'm still on

― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 16 April 2024 18:45 (one year ago)

I listened to this song far too many times as a teenager

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1MIc2YH0Ws

― banana-flavoured potatoes, “bonatoes”, (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 16 April 2024 18:56 (one year ago)

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