Chords for Jay Beckenstein from Spyro Gyra at RIJF 2022

[F#] And we are at the 2022 CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival with the man, the myth, the legend, Jay Beckensee, the Spire of Jira.
_ Jay, congratulations, 45, almost [F] 50 years and counting.
It'll be 50 years in a couple of years, I think, yeah.
So [B] talk about the genesis of the band coming up in Buffalo with that music, especially during that time and that scene in Buffalo in the mid-70s.
What was that like?
You [F#] know, Buffalo was a town that was starting to go down on its luck just around that time.
_ But it had an incredibly rich musical scene.
_ _ There was jazz from both sides of town.
There was a really good rockability _ and rock thing happening.
And there was a terrific blues scene.
It was like a mini Chicago.
So it was a fantastic place to _ gestate musically. _
Speaking of Jay Beckensee, Jay, [Fm] so during that time, I know you, Sherry America was a little younger then,
but Rick James was coming up during that time, that era.
Who were some of the other folks you remember coming up then?
Well, Rick is interesting.
You know, we _ had a little recording studio. _
It was in Clarence, New York, that we used.
And we had a budget for our record and our projects.
But it wasn't quite enough.
And we were buying blocks of time.
And we sold our leftover time to Rick James. _
That's funny.
I actually think I'm on Come Get It.
I didn't get a credit.
[F#] But we were there for the whole production of that.
And later on, I'm going to tell a quick story.
Go ahead, man.
So I got to know Rick.
I didn't know what a bad guy he was and stuff, how strange he was.
To me, he was just bigger than life and like an incredible powerful force.
But a few years later, I go to L.A.
And I say, I'm going to look up Rick James.
So I call him up.
And he says, hey, you want to go to Motown and meet Barry Gordy?
Barry Gordy.
Be Barry Gordy.
Yeah, yeah.
And I go, _ heck yeah.
Yeah, a lot.
So he pulls up in a yellow sports car.
And we go on up to Motown.
And sure enough, I'm ushered right into Barry's office.
And there he's sitting.
He said some nice things about our records.
And, you know, you guys are good musicians.
And then Rick [G#] left to go to the bathroom.
I don't know what he did in the bathroom, but he left to go to the bathroom.
And Barry leans over his neck and says, this ain't the [F#] dude you want to hang with, man.
_ _ _ Already [G#] then.
And then he says, you want to meet somebody cool?
I said, _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#] yeah.
And _ _ _ _ I'm dropping the name.
_ You know, the great singer that worked there.
Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson.
So I got to meet Smokey Robinson.
_ Really?
Yeah.
And that was the last time I hung with Rick James.
Shortly thereafter, he got in a lot of trouble.
Just a little bit.
Yeah, strange, strange guy.
Speaking with Jay Beckettstein.
So, Jay, _ _ [G] you constantly _ reinvent yourself [E] in the sound.
But yet you've been able to keep the Spyro Gyrus sound centrally towards the core.
How do you do that?
Because that's hard to do that after a year, after you're in albums and tours.
But yet you've kept the sound consistent, but yet evolving. _
Oh, well, you know, we've done so many records.
And each one we try to not sound like the one before.
Whether that's trying to narrow it to certain things we do or to widen it to things we haven't done.
We're always looking for that.
But [G#] ultimately, it's the same voices.
Four of us have been together for over 40 years.
_ [F#] And _ [B] it is my singing voice.
And [F#] it _ is Julio's guitar voice.
It is Tom's keyboard voice.
We can't escape ourselves.
We sound like ourselves no matter what we do.
Speaking of that, your most recent album, taking on some of the classic hits of the 70s and early 80s.
What inspired you to do that?
Because it sounds so cool hearing the Spyro Gyra touch on it.
Well, that very thing, doing something we'd never done.
You know, that was a real hardcore _ rule about Spyro Gyra in the early days.
You know, we grew up following miles and weather report and things like that.
And they always were, especially weather report, always wrote its own material.
So we were really dedicated to writing our own stuff and not doing covers ever.
That was kind of uncool.
_ Forty years later, the idea of doing covers sounded so exciting because we had never done it.
It's standards now.
Yeah, well, but we didn't do them.
We went out of our way, again, to not do what was expected.
We changed them up a great deal.
But we had a lot of fun [G#] with them.
You know, it was so nice to _ do other people's material and not be looking in the mirror going,
is my stuff good enough?
You know, if it was a Beatles tune, it was [F#] good enough.
Do something with it. _
Jay, if you could talk to [B] yourself when you were 25, 26, what would you tell yourself?
Of everything you've seen and experienced.
Take care of your teeth, buddy.
No.
_ _ No, _ _
[Fm] what would I say?
[Bm] _ Really. _
[F#] _ _ _ _ Really.
[G#] I would say, [B] enjoy the ride.
You know, when I was 25, 26, things were so exciting.
I was meeting such amazing people for the first time and [G] it was all so new.
_ And, you know, I spent too much of the time worrying about whether I was good enough
or whether it was going to last a long time or what people thought of me. _ _ _
You can go back to 25, [F] enjoy yourself for [F#m] Pete's sake.
We're going to do just that in a few minutes.
Jay, thank you so much for taking care of us.
Pleasure,