Oct 26, 2021
Podcast 857 is the second of my two-part conversation with Andrew Cyrille. The last twenty years has seen Andrew obtain some of the exposure that he so richly deserves, as his releases under his own name on ECM, TUM and Soul Note have been rapturously praised, as has been his work with Trio 3, joining Oliver Lake and Reggie Workman for ten albums.
Add to this sideman work on albums by Anthony Braxton, Dave Douglas, Uri Caine, and David Murray, and you see why he is rarely not working. The News, a quartet album with Bill Frisell, Ben Street and David Virelles, is his latest ECM release.
Podcast 857 takes us back to his time with Cecil Taylor, the pioneering avant-garde pianist who broke and then re-wrote all the rules of piano composition and performance. Andrew was his drummer for eleven years, and during that time, he says that Cecil never told him what to play. Together they made two of Taylor's seminal recordings, Unit Structures and Conquistador! on Blue Note Records.
We also discuss a forthcoming tribute album to Taylor featuring bassist William Parker and trumpeter Enrico Rava, and a new album for Trio3, both planned for 2022.