Singing on the drums

When jazz drummer Sylvia Cuenca tried to explain her first musical love, a sparkly drum kit she got before she was in her teens, her voice sounded like a sweet lick on a high hat.

“I don’t know why, it just caught my eye,” she said.

Cuenca, this week’s artist in residence at MSU Jazz Studies, is among the select few musicians who can conjure clear and vibrant melodies on the drums, an instrument that doesn’t produce definite pitches.

She knew it could be done as soon as she pulled the classic album “At Basin Street,” with the late trumpeter Clifford Brown and the late drummer Max Roach, from her dad’s collection, at a tender age.

“Max was singing on the drums, not just comping and soloing,” Cuenca said. “He was incredibly melodic, and I was drawn to that.”

The same words describe Cuenca’s own nimble, tuneful approach. She is sharing her skills, passion and experience this week with MSU jazz students in a series of workshops, classes and trips to high schools across the state, culminating in a concert 8 p.m. Friday (Dec. 8) at the Fairchild Theatre.

Cuenca’s affinity for song comes naturally.

“My mother loved to sing, and she knew the lyrics to hundreds of songs,” Cuenca said. “My heritage is Mexican, so she would sing boleros in Spanish.”

Her father played jazz guitar, and her brother played upright bass and mandolin.

“Every family gathering was full of music,” she said. “It was fun.”

She started playing snare drums at 11 and worked for hours each day on her beloved “sparkle kit.”

At the Stanford Jazz Workshop in Stanford, California, the great jazz drummer Victor Lewis was a valued mentor and deep influence.

“I learned about being a sensitive team player in a small group setting,” Cuenca said. “I call him a spontaneous composer. He seems to know exactly what to play at the right time on the kit.”

Lewis saw her talent and passion for music and pushed her to go to New York City.

In spring 1985, a two-week immersion in a city still brimming with jazz legends changed her life.

One night, she sat within a few feet of the late drum master Elvin Jones, a longtime member of John Coltrane’s historic quartet, at the Village Vanguard, then rushed down the street to Sweet Basil to hear another drum legend, the late Billy Higgins, play with the late pianist Cedar Walton.

“There was so much going on,” she said. “I went out every night. You’d sit at the bar next to some legendary player. I went home all fired up — ‘I’ve got to try this.’”

She packed her drums and a suitcase and took a $99 flight on People Express from San Jose, California, to New York, where she only knew two people.

“I was so young. It seems crazy now,” she said.

It took a few months for her to get traction. She played every gig that opened up, from weddings to club sessions.

She draws on her own experience when she tells her students to never say no.

“Play every chance you get, keep developing your craft,” she said. “You never know who’s listening out there.

As a drummer, the key is listening. Be patient but ready.”

Day jobs, including stints as a caterer and a legal proofreader, helped pay the bills. In the rare off-hour, she studied and transcribed music and practiced on the drums.

“It evolved into better and better work,” she said.

One night, Cuenca went to hear the late tenor-saxophone great Joe Henderson at the Village Vanguard.

To her surprise, Henderson remembered her. The two had met years before, when Henderson came to San Jose City College as a guest artist.

He asked for her card, but she was certain her encounter with jazz history would end there. About three weeks later, however, two friends called Cuenca and said, “Joe’s looking for you.”

When Henderson himself called, she thought it was a gag at first, but there was no mistaking his baritone voice.

In a matter of days, she got a passport and jetted off to Europe for a whirlwind, zig-zag tour with Henderson. The band featured an all-women rhythm section, with Cuenca, pianist Renee Rosnes and bassist Kim Clarke.

“We were all over the place, driving 10 or 15 hours a day, packing up and driving from southern Europe to northern Europe,” she said. “It was one of the best times of my life. I was living my dream.”

“We had earthquakes on the bandstand,” Henderson later said of the tour.

Thanks to Cuenca’s familiarity with the music of piano legend Kenny Barron, she got a “dream call” in 2000, touring Japan and Korea with Barron, the late saxophonist Michael Brecker and bassist Ray Drummond. Barron asked Cuenca to replace the late drummer Ben Riley, who took suddenly ill.

“I remember thinking, ‘This is really happening,’” Cuenca said. You can hear her put a fire under this matchless combo in a series of YouTube recordings from a Tokyo gig.

On Friday, Cuenca and the MSU students will play arrangements of classic Henderson compositions and tunes from the songbook of the late trumpeter-bandleader Clark Terry. Cuenca played with Terry for 17 years.

The ensembles will also play an eloquent and lyrical tune by Cuenca, “Resiliencia (Resilience),” a samba dedicated to “all the musicians around the world for what we went through during the pandemic and are still going through.”

Flexibility and openness to new genres, instruments and styles are key values for Cuenca. On the tour with Barron, she was pleasantly shocked to see Brecker nonchalantly sit behind the drums and erupt like Vesuvius.

“The guy sounded like Elvin Jones,” Cuenca said. “Ask some musicians. He had the vibe, the sound, the technique. He knew what he was doing.”

During the pandemic, Cuenca bought a nylon-string guitar, and she’s working on learning to play Brazilian music.

“I’m not a purist,” she said. “It’s important to branch out, learn other styles, music from other cultures. The more you know, the more you can express, and the more you can hear when you play with other musicians.”