Andrew Cyrille

Friday, March 3rd at 8pm, ISSUE is pleased to present solo performances from master drummer and composer Andrew Cyrille as well as Chicago-based composer and performer Kieran Daly. In the world of jazz—be it free, mainstream or other more personal styles—Andrew Cyrille is legendary for drawing vivid sonic pictures and making incendiary rhythms with his drum set. Through rigorous skeptical interrogation of the principles underlying improvised music of the past century, Kieran Daly exhibits a uniquely idiosyncratic approach to spontaneous composition with disorienting and oftentimes humorous results. The performances will take place at Brooklyn Music School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Since the 1960s, legendary percussionist Andrew Cyrille has been interested in the interpretive power of drums and percussion, whether in solo performance, alongside The Cecil Taylor Unit, or in conversation with countless groups and collaborators such as Elliott Sharp, Peter Brotzmann, the late Milford Graves, and more. Recently, Cyrille has released albums with Wadada Leo Smith & Qasim Naqvi, William Parker & Enrico Rava, Bill Frisell, and more, including “The Declaration of Musical Independence” with his quartet, released on ECM in 2016. Nate Chinen of The New York Times has also recently described Cyrille’s “late career renaissance,” stating that “Cyrille has reshaped jazz’s rhythmic syntax while engaging with its lineage. A tireless workhorse in the avant-garde, Cyrille deserves substantial credit for helping to unlock a freer pulse and purpose in the music, slipping away from a metronomic framework while preserving a rigorous attention to form.”

Master drummer and composer Andrew Cyrille, began studying science at St. John's University while playing jazz in the evenings. He began formally studying 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 artists ranging from Mary Lou Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Roland Hanna and Illinois Jacquet to 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. After leaving Taylor's group, he went on to work with formidable artists such 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. He is currently on faculty at The New School – School of Jazz in NYC. 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. A prolific and indefatigable composer and performer, Cyrille released Declaration of Musical Independence featuring Bill Frisell, Wadada Leo Smith and Richard Tietelbaum on ECM records in 2017, and LeBroBa in 2018. Cyrille has toured and performed throughout North America, Europe, Africa, and the former USSR. He formed Haitian Fascination with Haitian percussionist Frisner Augustin and guitarist Alix Pascal, and for over 27 years has been a member of TRIO3 with Oliver Lake and Reggie Workman. Cyrille leads his own groups in various formations and performs in duo, trio and larger configurations (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 2020 Doris Duke Artist Award, a 2019 commissioned composer in Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works program, the 2019 Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Award honoree by Arts for Art, Inc., a Guggenheim Fellow in Composition (1999), and has received three National Endowment for the Arts grants for performance and composition, two Meet the Composer/ AT&T- Rockefeller Foundation grants, an Arts International Award to perform with his quintet in Accra, Ghana, and West Africa, and two ASCAP awards for meritorious achievement in percussion composition.