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Freetime (Spyro Gyra Album)
''Freetime'' is the fifth album by Spyro Gyra, released in 1981. At ''Billboard'' magazine, the album reached No. 41 on the Top 200 albums chart and No. 1 on that magazine's Jazz Albums chart. Track listing Personnel Spyro Gyra * Jay Beckenstein – alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, clay flute, percussion * Tom Schuman – acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes, synthesizers * Jeremy Wall – acoustic piano, synthesizers * Chet Catallo – guitar * John Tropea – guitar * Dave Samuels – vibraphone, marimba * Eli Konikoff – drums * Gerardo Velez – percussion Guests * Rob Mounsey – synthesizers, backing vocals * Richard Tee – acoustic piano (7), Fender Rhodes (7) * Steve Khan – guitar (3) * Will Lee – bass, backing vocals * Errol "Crusher" Bennett – percussion * Richard Calandra – cymbal (4) * Randy Brecker – trumpet (1) * David Darling – cello (4) * Kasey Cisyk – backing vocals * Valerie Simpson – backing vocals Production ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spyro Gyra
Spyro Gyra is an American jazz fusion band that was formed in Buffalo, New York, in 1974. The band's music combines jazz, R&B, funk, and pop music. The band's name comes from ''Spirogyra'', a genus of green algae which founder Jay Beckenstein had learned about in college. History Early years Saxophonist Jay Beckenstein and keyboardist Jeremy Wall formed a band with jazz and rock musicians who were playing in the Buffalo bar and club circuit. In 1974, when a bar owner asked for the band's name, Beckenstein said, "spirogyra", a type of algae he had learned about in school. The bar owner wrote the name incorrectly, "Spyro Gyra", but it stuck. The founding members of the band were Beckenstein, Wall, bassist Jim Kurzdorfer, drummer Tom Walsh, and keyboardist Tom Schuman. In 1977, they released '' Spyro Gyra'' independently before making a deal with Amherst Records, which re-released the album with a different cover. It included "Shaker Song," which reached No. 90 on Billboard's H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rob Mounsey
Rob Mounsey (born December 2, 1952) is an American musician, composer, and arranger. Music career Mounsey was born in Berea, Ohio, and grew up in Seattle, Washington, spending a few years each in Findlay and Granville, Ohio. At the age of 17, he was awarded a 1970 BMI Student Composer Award for his orchestral work ''Ilium, New York, Is Divided into Three Parts''. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1971 to 1975. In 1976, he moved to New York City to become a studio musician, arranger, and producer for a wide range of well-known artists, including Aaron Neville, Aztec Camera, Brian Wilson, Carly Simon, Chaka Khan, Chromeo, Brett Eldredge, Diana Krall, Diana Ross, Donald Fagen, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Karen Carpenter, Madonna, Michael Franks, Natalie Cole, Paul Simon, Rihanna, Steely Dan, and others. He performed on keyboards in 1981 for Simon and Garfunkel's Concert in the Park. In 1985, he played keyboards in a New-York-based group called Joe Cool with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1981 Albums
Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments. * January 15 – Pope John Paul II receives a delegation led by Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa at the Vatican. * January 20 – Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, minutes after Ronald Reagan is sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, ending the Iran hostage crisis. * January 21 – The first DeLorean automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. * January 24 – An earthquake of magnitude in Sichuan, China, kills 150 people. Japan suffers a less serious earthquake on the same day. * January 25 – In South Africa the largest part of the town Laingsburg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masterdisk
Masterdisk is an American multimedia company in New York, located at 8 John Walsh Boulevard in Peekskill. They provide production services such as audio mastering, vinyl cutting and enhanced CD and DVD production. Their clients include such notable acts as Accept, Sting, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Spoon, Nirvana, Lou Reed, David Bowie, U2, Gorillaz, John Zorn, DMX, The Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, Metallica, Aerosmith and the Beatles. Masterdisk was founded in 1973 as a spin-off of the recording, editing and mastering arm of Mercury Records. Among the company's early mastering engineers were Gilbert Kong, who worked on early 1970s albums by such artists as Rod Stewart and Bachman–Turner Overdrive, and who also mastered singles, including "Ain't Understanding Mellow" by Jerry Butler and Brenda Lee Eager, and " The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace; and Phil Austin, who mastered most of the singles including Stewart's "Maggie May" and "You Wear It Well," "Beautiful Sun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Ludwig
Robert C. Ludwig (born c. 1945) is an American mastering engineer. He has mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen and Daft Punk resulting in over 3,000 credits. He is the recipient of numerous Grammy and TEC Awards. Biography At the age of eight in South Salem, New York, Ludwig was so fascinated with his first tape recorder, that he used to make recordings of whatever was on the radio. Ludwig is a classical musician by training, having obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in New York. He was also involved in the sound department at Eastman, as well as being principal trumpet of the Utica Symphony Orchestra. Inspired by Phil Ramone when he came to Eastman to teach a summer recording workshop, Ludwig end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valerie Simpson
Ashford & Simpson were an American husband-and-wife songwriting-production team and recording duo of Nickolas Ashford (May 4, 1941 – August 22, 2011) and Valerie Simpson (born August 26, 1946). Ashford was born in Fairfield, South Carolina, and Simpson in the Bronx, New York City. Afterwards, his family relocated to Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he became a member of Christ Temple Baptist Church. While there, he sang with a group called the Hammond Singers (named after the founding minister, James Hammond). Later, Nickolas attended and graduated from Willow Run High School in Ypsilanti, Michigan, before pursuing his professional career, where he would ultimately meet his wife, Valerie. They met at Harlem's White Rock Baptist Church in 1964. After having recorded unsuccessfully as a duo, they joined an aspiring solo artist and former member of the Ikettes, Joshie Jo Armstead, at the Scepter/Wand label, where their compositions were recorded by Ronnie Milsap ("Never Had It So Go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kvitka Cisyk
Kvitka "Kasey" Cisyk ( uk, Квітка Цісик; Квітослава-Орися Цісик, ''Kvitka Tsisyk''; April 4, 1953The Myth of Kvitka (11 April 2013) – March 29, 1998) was an American of ethnicity. Cisyk, a classically trained singer, achieved success in four musical genres: popular music, cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Darling (musician)
David Darling (March 4, 1941 – January 8, 2021) was an American cellist and composer. In 2010, he won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album. He performed and recorded with Bobby McFerrin, Paul Winter Consort, Ralph Towner and Spyro Gyra and released many solo albums. Among these were 15 recordings for ECM Records, ECM. Music career Darling was born on March 4, 1941 in Elkhart, Indiana. He was interested in music from an early age, beginning piano when he was four, cello at ten, and string bass in high school. He studied classical cello at Indiana State University and after graduating remained there another four years as a teacher. He worked as a studio musician in Nashville, Tennessee and was a member of the Paul Winter Consort until 1978. During the following year, he was part of the chamber jazz group Gallery with Ralph Towner and released his first solo album, Journal October. Darling's performance and composition draw on a wide range of styles, including classical music, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randy Brecker
Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B. Early life Brecker was born on November 27, 1945, in the Philadelphia suburb of Cheltenham to a musical family. His father Bob (Bobby) was a lawyer who played jazz piano and his mother Sylvia was a portrait artist. Randy described his father as "a semipro jazz pianist and trumpet fanatic. In school when I was eight, they only offered trumpet or clarinet. I chose trumpet from hearing Diz, Miles, Clifford, and Chet Baker at home. My brother (Michael Brecker) didn't want to play the same instrument as I did, so three years later he chose the clarinet!" Randy's father, Bob, was also a songwriter and singer who loved to listen to recordings of the great jazz trumpet players such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. He took Randy and his younger brother Mich ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Lee (bassist)
Will Lee is an American bassist known for his work on the ''Late Show with David Letterman'' as part of the CBS Orchestra and before that " The World's Most Dangerous Band" when Letterman hosted the NBC " Late Night" show. Lee has recorded and toured with many artists. He appeared on the Mark & Clark Band's hit record '' Worn Down Piano''. He performs with his Beatles tribute band, The Fab Faux, which he co-founded in 1998. Career Beginnings in music Lee was greatly influenced to pursue music because of his parents. His father, William Franklin Lee III played piano, trumpet and the upright bass professionally. Lee's mother Lois sang with big bands. Lee took up drums after seeing the Beatles on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', and by the time he was 12 had formed his first band in Miami. The band members each earned $9 a night playing the popular surfing tunes characteristic of the 60s. With the great numbers of drummers in Miami, Lee shifted to bass, an instrument that offered mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Khan
Steve Khan (born Steven Harris Cahn; April 28, 1947) is an American jazz guitarist. Career Steven Harris Cahn was born in Los Angeles. His father, lyricist Sammy Cahn, "loved to hear any and all versions of his songs". He took piano lessons as a child and played drums for the surf rock band the Chantays. The band's guitarist exposed him to the albums ''Tough Talk'' by The Crusaders and ''Movin' Wes'' by Wes Montgomery. In his late teens he quit the drums and started playing guitar. He was a member of the R&B band Friends of Distinction, recorded with keyboardist Phil Moore, then played on the album ''Bullitt'' by Wilton Felder ("one of my heroes"). Despite his father's advice to avoid a career in the music business, he graduated from UCLA with a degree in music composition and theory. In the early 1970s, he performed in an acoustic guitar duo with Larry Coryell and was a member of the Brecker Brothers band. As a session musician, he appeared on albums by Ashford & Simpson, Ruper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Tee
Richard Edward Tee (born Richard Edward Ten Ryk; November 24, 1943 – July 21, 1993) was an American pianist, studio musician, singer and arranger, who had several hundred studio credits and played on such notable hits as "In Your Eyes", "Slip Slidin' Away", "Just the Two of Us", "I'll Be Sweeter Tomorrow (Than I Was Today)", "Crackerbox Palace", "Tell Her About It", " Don't Give Up" and many others. Biography Tee was born in Brooklyn, New York to Edward James Ten Ryk (1886–1963), who was from Guyana, and Helen G. Ford Skeete Ten Ryk (1902–2000), of New York. Tee spent most of his life in Brooklyn and lived with his mother in a brownstone apartment building. Tee graduated from The High School of Music & Art in New York City and attended the Manhattan School of Music. Though better known as a studio and session musician, Tee led a jazz ensemble, the Richard Tee Committee, and was a founding member of the band Stuff. In 1981, he played the piano and Fender Rhodes for Simo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
