INTERVIEW WITH SPYRO GYRA FROM TheCelebrityCafe.com ARCHIVES
DM) A lot of people know about your career from Spyro Gyra. To start with a nice vague question, what has been going on in your career as of late?
JB) For one thing, I've been doing a lot of Spyro Gyra. We had 90 concerts this year.
DM) I understand that you did a solo album this year.
JB) Yep, and it didn't mean I was leaving Spyro or that I stopped touring with Spyro, I absolutely continued.
DM) So how does the one project differ from the other?
JB) There are a lot of differences. The making of it from the ground up was very different. The biggest difference was working with people other then the usual. Spyro Gyra's fabulous and it's great to have a tight family of people who work creatively for many, many years, but it's also nice to work with some fresh faces.
DM) Did that bring up any tension in your doing a solo thing away from the band?
JB) No. It was understood that I wasn't abandoning Spyro Gyra and we talked about it. They were very supportive.
DM) It sounds like you get along with the guys in the band more then just musically.
JB) Well, some of us have been together for more then 25 years. It's like an old marriage.
DM) Marriage's in today's day and age can break up much sooner than 25 years. What's the secret to keeping this marriage together?
JB) I guess never being able to sell enough records to quit. The secret to success... well, it's really nice, it's a fun gig. The music's nice, the gigs are fun, the audience's are really supportive. For somebody who's always wanted to be a musician, well this is it. This is a pretty good thing. We have always been dedicated to trying to play the best and the most interesting music we can. And it's a situation that much more than most, allows us to do that.
DM) That's interesting what you said before about not "selling enough records to quit"...
JB) (interrupting) Well, sometimes if they sell 6 million records, they don't need to put out a record for a few years. We've had a very steady pattern of putting out a record every year and touring every year and never letting up and never going away.
DM) Do you think if the success was much less or more it would have affected the band's staying together that drastically?
JB) I think if it was much less people couldn't afford to work in it, then yes it would. As far as much more, that I don't know about. I think we'd still want to do it, but maybe we wouldn't take some of the gigs we take. It would be a little bit of a difference. I'm not complaining at all, I'm quite happy with where it's been. It's actually quite extraordinary that we've lasted this long and we still sell a few records.
DM) You mentioned you always wanted to be a musician. When did you first get the kick to be a musician?
JB) I think from a very early age but it's hard to get a specific memory of it. My patents were both involved in music and there was a lot of music around the house.
DM) Did they teach you how to play music?
JB) My dad played with me when I was very young, and my father played clarinet as well, so that was an influence to picking up saxophone when I was seven. The first memory of me having a commitment to music was when I went to the orthodontist when I was eleven or twelve. He told me that the saxophone was pushing my teeth out and I should switch to trumpet which would push my teeth in. And I said I don't care, I really like saxophone. I made a big stink and they let me keep the saxophone. They straightened my teeth out anyway.
DM) DO you remember one of those first songs that you're dad taught you?
JB) Oh, boogie-. Always boogie woogie and blues. Stride piano and the such... so that's what I heard when I was young. My mom was an opera singer so I heard a lot of opera and Broadway when I was young.
DM) And when's the last time you played with either of your parents?
JB) Not too long ago. I accompanied my mom recording something for the family archives. My father and I, some time last year, played four handed piano because that's what I used to do when I was six. I used to sit at the bottom of the piano and do boogie-woogie lines.
DM) Which then lead into the jazz.
JB) Well, clearly.
DM) Now opera on the other hand, is a stretch from jazz.
JB) I think what I got from my mother are Broadway show tunes which aren't a stretch from jazz, a lot of traditional jazz groups have done interpretations of Broadway shows.
DM) Do you ever think of pursuing other areas of music than jazz?
JB) I think I have, and I think that's some of the confusion about Spyro Gyra. Sometimes it's jazz and sometimes it's not. Really, it's whatever I or any of the other guys want it to be at any given moment. If we want to play the blues, then it's a blues band, if we want to play Latin then it's a Latin band. We want to play something orchestral, then we try to be a classical ensemble. It's really hard for me at any time to WISH to play any other music because all I have to do is ask.