CYRO BAPTISTA'S BANQUET OF THE SPIRITS

CYRO BAPTISTA'S BANQUET OF THE SPIRITS

Featuring:

Cyro Baptista (Sting, Paul Simon, Trey Anastasio Band) - Composer, Percussion, Vocals

Tim Keiper (Vieux Farka Torré, Beat The Donkey) - Drums, Kamel Ngoni, Percussion

Shanir Blumenkranz (John Zorn) - Electric Bass, Double Bass, Oud

Brian Marsella (Matisyahu) - Keybords, Piano, Melodica

"Banquet of the Spirits is world music in the most literal sense of the phrase—traveling from continent to continent in a single song and creating intriguing new lands in the process. If you like mind-bogglingly precise rhythms and instrumental tightness interspersed with free jazz freakouts, then Banquet of the Spirits is for you." - Matt Brockett, jambase.com

"Bottom line: this is music of substance, brilliantly conceived, consummately executed. Miss it at your peril!" - Jan Dennis, Longboard Jazzer

BANQUET OF THE SPIRITS features the tight new quartet led by maestro Cyro Baptista—the percussionist who has performed with everyone from Herbie Hancock and Yo-Yo Ma to Trey Anastasio, Paul Simon and, Medeski Martin and Wood. Cyro’s endless sonic curiosity and intense rhythmic drive has never been stronger in these imaginative original songs. Featuring three of the best young musicians out of the downtown scene and some very special guests, the music jumps from a whisper to a scream and never misses a beat.

The quartet embodies the philosophy of Anthropofagia, a Brazilian cultural movement from the 1920's. The band, is a musical manifestation of the process of eating, swallowing, and digesting all the tendencies that are part of the sonic landscape and our environment. The music is the product of all sounds that they have collectively consumed over the years; some of them they've digested and others they have rejected. After that, it has been difficult to identify what belongs to what country, culture, or religion.

CYRO BAPTISTA, Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Cyro Baptista arrived in the U.S. in 1980 with a scholarship to the Woodstock-based Creative Music Studio. During the '70- and '80's, the Woodstock-based Creative Music Studio was considered the premier study center for contemporary creative music and is credited as the birthplace of world jazz - the improvisational and compositional expansion of the world's musical traditions. Founded in 1971 by Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso and Ornette Coleman, CMS brought together leading innovators in the jazz and world music communities. After his time at CMS, Cyro moved to New York City where he started his career on the streets of lower Manhattan. He has since emerged as one of the premier percussionists in the country. Coinciding with the rise in the public's interest of world music, Cyro has recorded and toured with some of music's most popular names. His mastery of Brazilian percussion and his numerous homemade instruments, have catapulted him into world renown. In short, if you’ve listened to the radio in the past 30 years, chances are you have heard Cyro’s caxixi, pandeiro or one of his (now famous) homemade instruments.

Cyro's credits read like a "Who’s Who" of modern music. He has 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". Other artists Cyro Baptista has performed and recorded with include David Byrne, Kathleen Battle, Gato Barbieri, Dr. John, Brian Eno, Robert Palmer, Melissa Etheridge, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Daniel Barenboin, Bobby McFerrin, Wynton Marsalis, Medeski Martin & Wood, Spyro Gyra, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and Santana. He has also played with many respected Brazilian artists such as Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins, Marisa Monte, and Nana Vasconcelos.

Cyro has performed on numerous 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 Hancock’s highly-acclaimed "Gershwin's World". A documentary on Cyro's first project, “Beat the Donkey”, was recorded for the WGBH-TV Boston program 'La Plaza' 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 recording (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 "Best Brazilian CD of the Year" and named Cyro percussionist of the year! Cyro' first solo recording, Villa Lobos/Vira Loucos, a heady mix of his own compositions with the work of the brilliant Brazilian composer Heitor Villa Lobos, has been acclaimed as "the most courageous, bright, funny, dramatic, and imaginative work in recent memory."

Cyro recently released his 7th studio album, entitled INFINITO. For this album, Cyro called on The Banquet of the Spirits as his core band and enlisted the help of several guests. These guests included members of Beat The Donkey, Kevin Breit, Eric Friedlander (John Zorn, Laurie Anderson), Romero Lubambo, Ikue Mori, Anat Cohen and many more. John Zorn called this album, “Another wonderful CD from the driving force of Beat The Donkey, Vira Loucos and so much more.”

For more information about BANQUET OF THE SPIRITS, please visit: http://www.myspace.com/banquetofthespirits

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