Q&A: Legendary Jazz Drummer Andrew Cyrille Speaks On Pleasing a Crowd, His Dream Collaboration, and Playing with Billy Harper

Andrew Cyrille (Photo by Jesse Chun)

Following a rapturously received gig in January 2020 with bassist Ben Street, pianist David Virelles, and guitarist Bill Frisell, legendary jazz drummer Andrew Cyrille (Cecil Taylor, Trio3, David Murray) intended to return that April as part of a duo with saxophonist Billy Harper.

Harper, a Houston native and University of North Texas graduate, is an ultra-accomplished instrumentalist in his own right, having played with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Randy Weston, Gil Evans, and Max Roach, not to mention on Louis Armstrong’s next-to-last album. We all know what happened that spring, but fortunately Epistrophy Arts has rescheduled. What follows was recorded by phone from Cyrille’s Brooklyn home, and intended to run the week of the original gig.

Fortunately, it’s still relevant.

Austin Chronicle: How did the duo show with Billy Harper come about?

Andrew Cyrille: Yeah, that’s an interesting one. At the New School where I teach I’d been seeing Billy for years. I did something with Billy when Cecil Bridgewater, who teaches at the School also, wanted to do one of those Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln projects – “Driva Man,” it could’ve been. So he got me and Billy, who’d worked with Max, and Reggie Workman, who’d also worked with Max, and a singer named Brianna. She sang some of the songs that Abbey and Max sang together, so I had the opportunity to play with Billy.

I was just thinking about this over the years, and I said to myself, “I’d like to do something with Billy.” I knew that he had come from Houston, Texas, so I asked him, “Would you like to do something with me down in Houston?” He said, “Sure.” I called David Dove in Houston, and then David put me in touch with Pedro Moreno from Austin, and we’re gonna do something in April in both cities. We’ll probably do something a little different as a saxophone/drum duo.

Billy Harper (Photo by Tom Haynes)

Austin Chronicle: Due in part to your years with Cecil Taylor, you’re usually considered an avant-garde musician. Do you make that kind of distinction, or do you just play music and what happens happens?

Cyrille: Well [chuckles], that was what happened when I was playing with Cecil, to some degree. A lot of times people use terms, and they don’t really either think about what they’re saying. When people talk about avant-garde, it just means that you do the traditional things in a different way. You still might be relating to the tradition in terms of the grand line, so to speak. We play what we play, and people will enjoy it. Sometimes they don’t. But the main thing is to be able to communicate and play with each other.

Austin Chronicle: Do you even think about how someone’s going to react to what you’re doing?

Cyrille: [laughs] Well, it goes without saying you can’t make people like everything that you’re saying – some people don’t like what you say, so what can you do about that? So to worry about it is a waste of time. You can’t make somebody like vanilla ice cream if they only like chocolate ice cream. So what can I tell ya? [laughs]

Austin Chronicle: Rock and pop musicians, it seems, have to have the audience in mind, not that they don’t do what they want to do. But jazz musicians trust in their own vision and ability, and I think people respond to that in a more honest way. I’ve been to shows with people who said, “It’s not my kind of music, but I appreciated what they were doing, because they’re obviously so into it and good at it.”

Cyrille: I agree with you up to a point. When I play, I’m interested in what the audience feels about what I do. We don’t just do it for ourselves. If that were the case, we’d just stay in and have a jam session, and just play with each other. But when we go out and play for people, yes, we do hope that they enjoy what it is that we do. We’ve been invited to go play at the Vanguard again this coming year, and next year, too. [COVID put paid to those gigs.] So obviously people were coming last year and the year before to listen to the band, and we had SRO crowds. The people who owned the Vanguard like what we do, the people who come like what we do. They’re doing a good business, and they treat us very well, and that’s because we bring the people in, and the people enjoy what it is that we’ve done. But I can’t say that we as musicians just play for ourselves. That’s not really true.

Life is what it is, and life influences us in so many different ways, so all artists do is express what they feel in whatever idiom they are about the life that they’re living, and whatever the dynamics are of that life that makes them feel what it is that they’re expressing. It’s the same across the board – it’s not really any different, except that one chooses the vehicle of expression: dance, poetry, music, painting.

Austin Chronicle: Is there somebody who you haven’t worked with yet that you’d like to?

Cyrille: I always wanted to play with Sonny Rollins, but I don’t even know if he’s playing anymore now. [Sadly, he isn’t, for health reasons.] Working at the Vanguard many years ago when I was with Cecil, the Vanguard would have two bands: Sonny’s and Cecil’s. Sonny lived in Brooklyn, where I grew up and where I live, and sometimes after we would play he would drive me home. So I would talk to him, but I never had an opportunity to play with Sonny. That’s the first person that comes to mind.

I’ve had opportunities to sit in with Ornette Coleman at the old Five Spot when I was working with the vibist Walt Dickerson, who was also a great influence on me. Ornette said one night, “You want to sit in?” So I sat in with him, and I think Don Cherry. Paul Bley came up and played piano. I don’t know if Jimmy Garrison was playing bass that night – it could’ve been. Don Cherry – I have a tape of Don and me in the basement. It’s probably all oxidized by now. But just to reiterate, Sonny Rollins is someone I’d really have liked to play with, even if it was just a couple of tunes. I wouldn’t have to play in public – I’d go to his house just to sit in with him, if I had that opportunity.

One of the musicians I used to hire, David S. Ware, sounded just like Sonny Rollins. I have a tape of David and Sonny together practicing, and you can hardly tell the difference between the two. And he was very close to Sonny. But of course when he was playing with me doing what he wanted to do as David, you really couldn’t tell that so much. He just had a command of the horn. But that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to someone who played with and sounded like Sonny.