Fusion stalwarts Spyro Gyra [ tickets ] return to the road in the new year to support their 25th album "In Modern Times" (Heads Up), which is one of 2000's top-selling contemporary jazz releases. The album also commemorates the group's impressive 25-year career, which had its humble beginnings back in Buffalo, N.Y.

In the mid-'70s, saxophonist Jay Beckenstein and keyboardist Jeremy Wall mixed Latin, R&B, jazz, and funk into a slick concoction years before the term "smooth jazz." Their recording career took off with their first album, 1979's platinum-selling "Morning Dance," and follow-ups like "City Kids," "Breakout," and "Alternating Currents" cemented their status as one of the genre's few bankable acts. The group's albums have featured such notable musicians as vibraphonist Dave Samuels, drummers Steve Jordan and Steve Gadd and bassists Will Lee, Eddie Gomez, and Marcus Miller.

Spyro Gyra's current bassist, Scott Ambush, joined the group for its 1992 album "Three Wishes," and rounds out the current lineup with founder Beckenstein, drummer Joel Rosenblatt, guitarist Julio Fernandez and keyboardist Tom Schuman.

LiveDaily spoke with Ambush about his beginnings with bass and the state of contemporary jazz.

LiveDaily: Was bass your first instrument?

Scott Ambush: Yes. Well, that's not literally true. I mean, I took piano lessons as a kid, but I was more interested in playing football.

What attracted you to the bass?

What started me on bass was playing in a band with my friends. My friends were brothers, who were a year apart in age, so they'd generally celebrate their birthdays together. So they got guitars for their birthday--one was 12, one was 13. One of them got a cherry sunburst Les Paul, and the other one got an SG. So we started a band, and I was going to play drums. Unfortunately--or fortunately--another friend of ours who lived right next door had gotten a set of drums for Christmas the year before. So he played drums. And for me, it was either play bass or be left out. And at 12 years old, you don't get left out. So I begged my dad and my mom for a bass, and they got me a bass.

How and when did you get the call to play with Spyro Gyra?

I actually got called to confirm that I was a member of the band on Christmas Eve of '91. Somebody recommended me for the gig, and I'm honestly not sure who it was. They called me to come out for the auditions in New York, and that's how I got hooked up.

Musically, what helped you get prepared for a group like Spyro Gyra?

More than anything, playing. Playing a lot, listening to a lot of different types of music. I mean, the most important thing in this kind of a band is being versatile. It's not strictly a straight-ahead band, but we do straight-ahead stuff. It's not a Latin band, but there's Latin influences and inspirations. It's not a funk band, but there's funk inspirations. It's a little bit of everything.

To a certain degree, the band has been derided a bit for that, for maybe being a little bit of everything to a little bit of everybody. But I think the most important thing is that it's genuine. Those influences are there not because somebody decided, "You know, maybe we should do some Latin stuff." It's because somebody in the band--or everybody in the band--really loves Latin music. Our guitarist Julio is from Cuba. I grew up listening to everything, playing a lot of R&B and funk and fusion. One of the first things I listened to was [Chick Corea's 1970s fusion band] Return to Forever, stuff like that.

So everything seeps in there. And like I said, I think the most important thing is that it's genuine--and that comes out in the music, I think. And I think that's why the band has such a broad appeal. I think people can hear that. They'll hear when you're doing something to placate some audience or patronize some target.

Where do you see contemporary jazz going?

I'm not sure. I think when Jay, Jeremy and Tom started this band, again, I think it was from a genuine sense of who they were and where they were coming from. The first tune, "Shaker Song," was really Jay's being influenced by Stan Getz and Astrid Gilberto--the Brazilian thing. They weren't trying to do smooth jazz, they were just doing music. And at that point in time, you could do that. The radio was much more open than it is now. You could do instrumental music and have a Top 40 hit, which they did.

Contemporary jazz over the last five years, maybe a little longer, has been very much influenced by what is played on the radio. There has been this consequential narrowing of the genre, I think, to the point now where programmers have certain qualifications for what gets played. Now it's done through focus groups. If your music doesn't sound a certain way, doesn't have certain qualities or production values, then it doesn't get played on the radio. And unfortunately, there are very few other outlets for people to hear music.

I'm starting to hear things from people at live shows. They want to hear more music, and that's the reason they come to the concerts. A lot of times, people who listen to jazz radio say, "I have it on in the background while I'm doing my laundry." It's an interesting turn, when you talk about airplay correlating to sales--that's not necessarily the case. At least it doesn't seem to be working out that way.

If you look at the difference between Gavin, which is the [radio airplay] charts, and Soundscan [which tracks album sales], they don't necessarily correlate. I'm not sure what that says about the radio. My take on it is that, like I said, I hear a lot of people say that they love smooth jazz because they can turn the radio on in the background while they're doing their laundry, reading a book, making dinner. But if I’m putting something on in the background to be some sort of secondary part of my life, why am I going to go out and buy it to put it on in the background when I can just turn the radio on? Why would I spend $15 on a CD that I'm not going to listen to?

So maybe people are getting a little bored with the format. And it will evolve. The reason it's come to the popularity that it has now is because people listen to it, and when people listen to something, advertisers by advertising time, and the radio station gets money, and they continue to do what they do to keep that revenue stream coming in. Now if the listeners start to migrate away from that, looking to something else, then it's going to have to evolve, or die.