Henry Grimes and Andrew Cyrille

HENRY GRIMES AND ANDREW CYRILLE MAKE MUSIC NEW AGAIN AT ZURCHER ART STUDIO, NEW YORK CITY, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1st, 2013

WHO:  Henry Grimes (acoustic bass, violin, poetry) and Andrew Cyrille (drum kit) 
WHAT:  concert (jazz / avant-garde jazz)
WHEN:  Tuesday, Oct. 1st, 2013, 7 p.m. promptly
WHERE:  Zurcher Studio, 33 Bleecker St. betw. Lafayette & Bowery one block above Houston St. and just opposite Mott St., 212-777-0790, <www.galeriezurcher.com>.

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... "As for Henry Grimes and Andrew Cyrille [in the Bang-on-a-Can Marathon], a tremendous amount of music was being produced by just two men.  Grimes alternated between bass (olive green and covered with shiny star stickers) and violin.  On bass alone, he was something of a one-man orchestra, bowing, strumming, double-stopping and producing a wide, deep stream of music.  Cyrille's drums, skittering, restless, kept the music moving forward, though not in anything like a straight line.  The music was decidedly and proudly free..."  -- "All About Jazz."

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In the late ‘50s and throughout the ‘60s, after receiving his music education at the Mastbaum School in Philadelphia and at Juilliard, HENRY GRIMES (upright bass, violin, poetry) played acoustic bass with many master jazz musicians of that era, including Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes, Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, and McCoy Tyner.  Sadly, a trip to the West Coast to work with Al Jarreau and Jon Hendricks went awry, leaving Henry in downtown Los Angeles at the end of the '60s with a broken bass he couldn't pay to repair, so he sold it for a small sum and faded away from the music world.  Without a bass, a vehicle, or a telephone, he was truly lost.  He survived by doing manual labor and redirecting his creative powers into writing poetry.  He was discovered there by a Georgia social worker and fan in 2002, was given a bass by William Parker, and very soon afterwards made a triumphant return to New York City in early 2003 to play in New York City's great Vision Festival.  Since then, Henry Grimes has played more than 500 concerts (including many festivals), touring throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, playing and recording with many of this era's music heroes, such as Rashied Ali, Marshall Allen, Fred Anderson, Marilyn Crispell, Andrew Cyrille, Bill Dixon, Edward "Kidd" Jordan, Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, William Parker, Marc Ribot, Wadada Leo Smith, and again, Cecil Taylor.  Henry made his professional debut on a second instrument (the violin) at Lincoln Center at the age of 70, has seen the publication of the first volume of his poetry, "Signs Along the Road," and creates illustrations to accompany his new recordings and publications.  He has received many honors in recent years, including four Meet the Composer grants, and has also held a number of recent residencies and offered master classes at many top educational institutions around the world.  Henry can be heard on 87 recordings, including a dozen recent ones, on various labels.  <http://henrygrimes.com>.

Master percussionist ANDREW CYRILLE was born in Brooklyn and as a child played in a drum and bugle corps, worked in jazz groups during his early teens, was fortunate to have Philly Joe Jones as his mentor, and gave serious thought to studying chemistry, but he decided to pursue music and enrolled at the Juilliard School in the late '50's (as did Henry Grimes).  Since then Mr. Cyrille has played / recorded / toured with a wide range of musicians, including Muhal Richard Abrams, John Carter, Marilyn Crispell, Kenny Dorham, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Oliver Lake, Jimmy Lyons, David Murray, Horace Tapscott, Vladimir Tarasov, Mal Waldron, Reggie Workman, Mary Lou Williams, and countless others.  When Sunny Murray left Cecil Taylor's group in 1964, Andrew replaced him and stayed with the pianist for 12 years.  Since then, Andrew has organized several percussion groups, including Dialogue of the Drums, Pieces of Time, and Weights and Measures; other distinguished percussionists in these groups included Obo Addy, Rashied Ali, Thabo Michael Carvin, Kenny Clarke, Milford Graves, and Famoudou Don Moye.  These days, Andrew Cyrille continues to record and perform in duo, trio, quartet, quintet, and big band formations; in addition, he is on the faculty of the New School University in New York City.   His sterling work has earned him a number of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and from Meet the Composer, and in 1999, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition.  Further information:  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cyrille>.