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Cyro Baptista

Since arriving in the U.S. in 1980 from his native country Brazil, Cyro Baptista has emerged as one of the premier percussionists in the country. Coinciding with the rise in the public’s interest of world music, Cyro has managed to record and tour with some of music’s most popular names. His mastery of Brazilian percussion and the many instruments he creates himself, have catapulted him into world renown.

With his own project, the percussion and dance ensemble known as 'Beat the Donkey' Cyro gives free reign to his imagination, mixing his tremendous musical skills, his natural humor and theatrical ways with instruments from Brazil, Middle East, Indonesia, Africa and US.

Cyro's credits read like a "Who’s Who" of modern music. He toured extensively with Yo-Yo Ma's Brazil Project, Trey Anastasio's Band (of Phish), John Zorn's Electric Masada, Herbie Hancock's Grammy award winning "Gershwin’s World" , Sting and Paul Simon's "Rhythm of the Saints".

The wide range of artists Cyro Baptista has performed and recorded with include: David Byrne, Kathleen Battle, Gato Barbieri, Dr. John, Brian Eno, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Palmer, Melissa Etheridge, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Daniel Barenboin, Bobby McFerrin, Wynton Marsalis, Yo-Yo-Ma, Medeski Martin & Wood, Spyro Gyra, Trey Anastasio from Phish, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Santana and Sting. He has also played with many respected Brazilian artists such as Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins, Marisa Monte, and Nana Vasconcelos.

Downbeat Magazine - Aug. 2003 Cyro Baptista "RISING STAR PERCUSSIONIST"

New York Times Cyro Baptista's Beat The Donkey Top 10 Alternative CD of 2002

Wire Magazine Cyro Baptista's Beat The Donkey Top 10 Global Music CD of 2002

PBS-WGBH Boston Beat The Donkey Emmy Award Winning Special

JamBase.com Cyro Baptista Top 10 instrumentalists

Drum Magazine Cyro Baptista Best Jazz Percussionist (2002) Best World Beat Percussionist (2003)

Cyro has performed on five Grammy award winning albums: Yo-Yo-Ma’s "Obrigado Brasil", Cassandra Wilson's "Blue Light 'Til Dawn", The Chieftains' "Santiago", Ivan Lins' "A Love Affair", and Herbie Hancockæs highly-acclaimed "Gershwin's World". A documentary on Cyro's main project, Beat the Donkey, was recorded for the prestigious WGBH-TV Boston program 'La Plaza' won 3 New England EMMY Awards in 2002, and continues to air on PBS stations nationwide. Cyro collaborated with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra for a Brazilian Carnaval modern jazz concert.

The first Beat the Donkey album, (TZADIK) was picked by The New York Times as one of the ten best alternative albums of 2002. Readers of JAZZIZ and DRUM magazine voted it as "Best Brazilian CD of the Year" and named Cyro "Best Percussionist of 2002." Downbeat Magazine's 51st annual critics' poll selected Cyro as "Rising Star" in percussion.

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Radio & Podcasts

Cyro Baptista, Felipe Salles, Gianluigi Trovesi, Ben Rosenblum & More

Read "Cyro Baptista, Felipe Salles, Gianluigi Trovesi, Ben Rosenblum & More" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


Here is our weekly merry-go-round of recent and upcoming albums, which this time will feature great saxophonists, up and coming composers, and various projects showing that jazz is the most inclusive genre out there, welcoming any source of inspiration from Baroque to Brazilian to Flamenco.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" Mondo Jazz Theme 0:00 Walter Smith III “K& + BYu$" return to casual (Blue Note) 0:16 Host talks 6:52 ...

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Album Review

The Nels Cline Singers: Share the Wealth

Read "Share the Wealth" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero


L'idea era di registrare delle lunghe improvvisazioni per poi selezionare frammenti, operare un copia-incolla di davisiana memoria e dar vita ad una sorta di mosaico/collage psichedelico. L'ascolto del materiale registrato, la percezione della magia sprigionata dalle sessions e della unicità dei brani hanno cambiato le carte in tavola e suggerito di pubblicare integralmente, senza sforbiciate, quello che è diventato Share the Wealth. Ossia--nella versione doppio LP e CD (oltre ottanta minuti) registrato in soli due giorni dalla versione allargata di ...

14
Album Review

The Nels Cline Singers: Share The Wealth

Read "Share The Wealth" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


Guitarist Nels Cline has led the Nels Cline Singers since 2002. While they have sometimes had guest performers on their recordings, the core band has been a trio of Cline, drummer Scott Amendola and bassist Trevor Dunn (originally Devin Hoff). This album expands the group to a sextet with the addition of saxophonist Skerik, keyboardist Brian Marsella and percussionist Cyro Baptista. The experimental ante was further upped by the fact that they had never before played together in this combination, ...

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Album Review

The Nels Cline Singers: Share The Wealth

Read "Share The Wealth" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


A work of pummeling beauty, exhaustion and exhilaration await at the end of genre rogue guitarist Nels Cline's upheaval Share the Wealth, eighty minutes of magical, maniacal, free jam composition that, in perhaps a few more years down the line--if the line makes it past Election Day--we'll argue stands right up there with such and such album of equal fire and fury. Time, to which we've become too nervously accustomed, is tense, and everyone's cranked to ten or ...

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Extended Analysis

Caym: The Book Of Angels Vol. 17

Read "Caym: The Book Of Angels Vol. 17" reviewed by Warren Allen


CaymThe Book of Angels Vol .17Tzadik2011 Brazilian master percussionist Cyro Baptista first encountered composer John Zorn back in the early 1980s. Baptista, who has since gone on to work with everyone from singer Paul Simon to cellist Yo Yo Ma, at the time was only recently arrived in New York from Brazil. He and Zorn evidently recognized some common artistic craziness/genius between themselves, and since then Baptista's wide array of traditional ...

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Album Review

Cyro Baptista's Banquet of the Spirits: Infinito

Read "Infinito" reviewed by Joel Roberts


Multi-talented percussionist Cyro Baptista may have the most dazzlingly eclectic resumé in contemporary music. He's performed and recorded with mainstream jazzers like Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis; downtown experimentalists like John Zorn and Laurie Anderson; pop icons like Sting and Paul Simon and major Brazilian stars like Milton Nascimento and Ivan Lins. And he may be the only artist in the world who can list both Yo Yo Ma and Snoop Dogg among his credits. Baptista's fourth ...

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Multiple Reviews

Cyro Baptista: Lucifer, The Dreamers & Orra

Read "Cyro Baptista: Lucifer, The Dreamers & Orra" reviewed by Stuart Broomer


John Zorn Lucifer,:Book of Angels, Volume 10 Tzadik 2008 John Zorn The Dreamers Tzadik 2008 Phantom Orchard Orra Tzadik 2008

Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista is one of the great sidemen currently active, a musician whose resourcefulness can enrich and enliven almost any music, with projects from ...

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Performance / Tour

Cyro Baptista Fall Tours

Cyro Baptista Fall Tours

Source: JamBase

TOUR BASED ON HIS DEBUT SOLO CD FROM 1997 Cyro Baptista is proud to announce his newest adventure and its upcoming shows, Villa-Lobos/Vira-Loucos. This adventure is in fact his oldest and first project: it is based on his debut solo CD , recorded in 1997, where he interprets the music of Brazil's greatest classical composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. The first concert will be on October 13, at New York City's Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall. At Carnegie Hall, the band will be ...

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Recording

Cyro Baptista:Infinito

Cyro Baptista:Infinito

Source: JamBase

By: Dennis Cook

There are musicians whose presence bestows a stamp of quality and originality regardless of the specific project, and Cyro Baptista is surely of this breed. He infects music with his joyful gusto for his craft, leaving one slightly heated and nicely agitated. One quickly picks up on this energy with opener “Infinito Coming," a mighty updraft that lifts feet from the cold, cold ground. Baptista's current ensemble, Banquet of the Spirits, is a warming delight. Playful, wildly ...

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Performance / Tour

Cyro Baptista November Tour

Cyro Baptista November Tour

Source: JamBase

BLESSED BRAZILIAN SONIC PROVOCATEUR OUT ON RARE SOLO TOUR IN NOVEMBER

Cyro and his cannibals “...truly one of the greatest musicians in the world..." -Wynton Marsalis

“...there are few percussionists anywhere today who approach their art with the refinement, intelligence, tenderness and sophistication that Cyro Baptista does." -DRUM!

This November, master percussionist Cyro Baptista will summon ancient rhythms and melodies on a handful of special dates in the Midwest and West Coast with his latest project, Banquet of ...

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Recording

Cyro Baptista:banquet of the Spirits

Cyro Baptista:banquet of the Spirits

Source: All About Jazz

By: Dennis Cook

A gyroscope of delighted, percussive fracture, Cyro Baptista's newest offering, Banquet of the Spirits (Tzadik), whistles and thumps and generally trundles with twisted smarts, a cumulative treat that brick builds a solid, fully unique “thing" befitting of the hyper gifted percussionist/visionary. A fixture of NYC's downtown jazz scene and Trey Anastasio alumni as well as a powerful hired gun for Sting and Paul Simon, Baptista reaches full maturity as a solo artist on Banquet. The most “Brazilian" ...

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Festival

Cyro Baptista performs at the Hoboken Arts & Music Festival

Cyro Baptista performs at the Hoboken Arts & Music Festival

Source: All About Jazz

Cyro Baptista to perform at the Hoboken Spring Arts & Music Festival

Sunday May 7, 2006 11am to 6pm Free

Washington Street - Observer Highway to 7th Street in Hoboken, NJ

Featuring over 300 artists, sculptors, photographers and craftspeople

3 stages of live performance - so far featuring: * Cyro Baptista: http://www.cyrobaptista.com (see bio below) * The Soul Cruisers: http://www.soulcruisers.com * The Verdict: http://www.verdictisin.com * Red Molly: http://www.redmolly.com ...

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Recording

Billy Martin of Medeski Martin and Wood Releases Socket on Amulet Records ; Live Collaboration Featuring Eyvind Kang, Min Xiao Fen, Cyro Baptista +

Billy Martin of Medeski Martin and Wood Releases Socket on Amulet Records ; Live Collaboration Featuring Eyvind Kang, Min Xiao Fen, Cyro Baptista +

Source: All About Jazz

New York, NY: With raging distortion, polyphonic-cacophony and speaking in tongues, NYCs downtown luminaries lead by Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin and Wood) channel the mad spirits in front of a live audience. Two nights distilled and concentrated into one seriously potent mix of heaven and hell. May these sonic witchdoctors cure what ails, chase the dragons and cast spells on your world. Socket, produced by Billy Martin, was recorded live to 2 track at Tonic (NYC), January 14-15, 2005. Released ...

"...The man the stars call when they want that otherworldly flavor in the mix…" - Time Out New York

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