Although the 74 year-old New Yorker is readily tagged, through his associations with Cecil, Muhal, Braxton et al, as a pioneer of avant-garde drumming it would be wrong to assume that his only purpose is to extend the possibilities of the kit beyond straight timekeeping. The first time I saw Cyrille, in a trio with bassist Mark Dresser and reeds player Marty Ehrlich at the old Vortex, he stole the show by way of his groove. Although this sumptuous 7-CD set, covering the period 1978 to 1985, is full of examples of Cyrille's ability to use the drums as a canvas for timbral colour, it also underlines how firm a grip he has on the art of playing a repeated figure without subsiding into tedium. His debut, Metamusician's Stomp, remains an object lesson in this respect. The use of the sensually purring toms as a strong complement to the bass lines and the snare as a form of crackling percussion brilliantly serve the marked Caribbean pulse of much of the material, which also stands out for the imaginative nature of Cyrille's composing. His immense stylistic breadth is underlined by two challenging small group sessions, the trio set Nuba, which finds him with Jimmy Lyons and Jeanne Lee and Something In Return where he pairs with Lyons again. If these stripped down settings reveal great sensitivity as well as dynamism then the two further quartet releases, Special People and The Navigator, are another showcase for some excellent writing as well as playing. Yet none of these quite match the beauty of X Man, an album that builds a superlative bridge between the gentler strains of West Indian folk and the harder edge of American art music. This collection makes the point that the great drummer is only part of the Cyrille story. The progressive bandleader-composer is the other.