Spyro Gyra — North Sea Jazz Festival, 1986

A filmed live concert by the American jazz-fusion band Spyro Gyra at the North Sea Jazz Festival on 13 July 1986, in the Garden Pavilion of the Congresgebouw in The Hague, Netherlands. Formed in 1974 around saxophonist Jay Beckenstein and keyboardist Jeremy Wall, the band was then in its most fertile period, buoyed by the album “Breakout,” released that same year. The set runs through a repertoire representative of its sunlit jazz fusion, blending funk grooves, limpid melodies and collective improvisation: “Double Take,” “Whirlwind” and “Bob Goes To the Store” from “Breakout,” the hit “Morning Dance,” “Heliopolis,” and a Richie Morales drum solo. The encore “Shakedown,” written by Jeremy Wall, closes this full concert, a reference for lovers of 1980s fusion. A precious period capture, it fixes the band’s onstage energy — Beckenstein on saxophone, Tom Schuman on keyboards, Julio Fernández on guitar — and documents one of the genre’s institutions playing Europe’s largest jazz festival.