This band are as talented as any of the bands they have supported, but have not had the luck to secure a major record deal or the promotion they deserve. Gamalon has recorded six albums, played shows with Vital Information, Niacin, Gongzilla, Brand X and many others. This was a hugely impressive achievement for a relatively obscure jazz rock band at that time. Gamalon’s self-titled debut album was picked up and released by the Buffalo-based Amherst Records label in 1987 and bulleted to the number 8 position on Billboard’s contemporary jazz charts. When Genesis played Buffalo on their first USA tour in 1973, the mighty progressive rock band was very impressed by supporting act Rodan’s opening act, as Rodan (later to become Gamalon) was already covering Genesis’ music when Genesis were virtually unknown in the US. Held to the Light has a little swing here, a little funk there, some tasty ethnic flavors and plenty of confident virtuosity led by the two-guitar attack of Bruce Brucato and Tony Scazzaro.” - John Collinge, Progression Magazine, Winter 1997 “This issue’s contemporary progressive jazz-rock award goes to Gamalon for issuing a challenging yet accessible album. On Held to the Light the thick atmospheric edge is more likely to appeal to progressive or new age fans wishing to dip their feet into fusion waters without getting completely soaked. Both possess a Holdsworthian sense of richness in sound, color and tone, but play in a style that is infinitely more laid back and sparse. “The guitars of Tony Scazzaro and Bruce Brucato lead the melodic layout of the entire album.
“Exchange that spare Steve Vai album for the newly-released effort by the jazz-rock group Gamalon…Judging from the Held to the Light disc, the new Gamalon should offer many of the same pleasures as the old one – blinding guitar virtuosity and rhythms of delirious intensity…There’s more texture to the rhythm section here – a greater variety of rhythms and a bigger range of drum sounds, such as the Indian tabla in “Cave” and “The Sword”…The return of Gamalon makes 1997 look better already.” - Dale Anderson, Artvoice, December 25, 1996
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Prominent among these groups in the 1980s and ’90s was certainly Gamalon, the all-instrumental fusion powerhouse that took the baton from the likes of mid-’70s Jeff Beck and the Mahavishnu Orchestra and ran with it, in the process crafting some of the most ambitiously virtuosic instrumental music to ever have emerged from Western New York”. “If you’ve been out hitting the original music clubs of late and have noted the dizzying and dazzling display of instrumental prowess evidenced by a host of hot young bands, bear in mind that Buffalo has a long history of progressive fusion music, and has never had a shortage of absolutely killer instrumentalists. Gamalon - Held To The Light - 1996 - Gertrude Records
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