Andrew Cyrille
Master drummer and composer Andrew Cyrille, began studying science at St. John's University while playing jazz in the evenings. He formally studied drums and composition first with Philly Joe Jones in 1958, and later at The Juilliard School and Hartnett School of Music. At that time, he also performed with Mary Lou Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Roland Hanna and Illinois Jacquet, Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, Walt Dickerson, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji among others.
Beginning in 1964, Cyrille’s 11-year iconic collaboration with pianist Cecil Taylor would define the category of free jazz drumming and establish Cyrille in the vanguard of jazz drummers and percussionists. From 1969, Cyrille formed several percussion groups featuring notable drummers such as Kenny Clarke, Milford Graves, Famoudou Don Moye, Rashied Ali, Daniel Ponce, Michael Carvin and Vladimir Tarasov. Since leaving Taylor's group, he went on to work with formidable artists as David Murray, Muhal Richard Abrams, Mal Waldron, Horace Tapscott, James Newton, Peter Brötzmann and Oliver Lake. Cyrille was the drummer on Billy Bang's A Tribute to Stuff Smith’, notable for being the last studio session of Sun Ra.
From 1971-1973, Cyrille was artist in residence and instructor at Antioch College, OH, and also taught at the Graham Windham Home for Children in New York. In 1994, he released an educational video, Jazz Methodology in Drum Music: In and Out of Meter, based on nearly 100 jazz albums and 30 years of Cyrille's professional jazz drumming with artists like Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and others. He is currently on faculty at The New School – School of Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC and served on faculty at the 2018 Banff Center Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.
A prolific and indefatigable composer and performer, Cyrille released Visiting Texture (2016) with TRIO3 featuring Oliver Lake and Reggie Workman, Declaration of Musical Independence (2017) featuring Bill Frisell, Wadada Leo Smith and Richard Tietelbaum, and LeBroBa (2018) with Wadada Ledo Smith and Bill Frisell. Recent works include Breaking the Shell (2024) with Bill Frisell and Kit Downes, a solo work, Music Delivery/Percussion (2023), The Emerald Duets (2022) with Wadada Leo Smith, Two Centuries (2022) with Qasim Naqvi and Wadada Leo Smith, and more.
Cyrille has toured and performed throughout North America, Europe, Africa, and the former USSR. He formed Haitian Fascination with legendary Haitian musicians, percussionist Frisner Augustin and guitarist Alix ‘tit’ Pascal. For over 27 years, Cyrille was a member of TRIO3 with Oliver Lake and Reggie Workman. Cyrille leads his own groups in various formations and has performed in duo, trio and larger configurations and big bands with luminaries such as Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Marilyn Crispell, Bill Frisell, Richard Teitelbaum, Irene Schweizer, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Jason Moran, Vijay Iyer, David Virelles, Bill McHenry, Ben Street, Henry Grimes, William Parker, Soren Kjaergaard, and others. In addition to Andrew Cyrille’s 21st Century Big Band Unlimited, his most recent big band performance was with Mark Masters’ American Jazz Institute Ensemble.
Cyrille is a recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award (2020), commissioned composer in Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works program (2019), Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Award honoree by Arts for Art (2019), Inc., Guggenheim Fellow in Composition (1999), and has received multiple National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants for performance and composition, Meet the Composer/ AT&T- Rockefeller Foundation grants, an Arts International Award to perform with his quintet in Accra, Ghana and West Africa, and ASCAP awards for meritorious achievement in percussion composition.
