Based in New York City but originally from northern California, Sylvia Cuenca is a skillful, hard-swinging post-bop/hard bop drummer who is best known for her associations with veteran trumpeter/flügelhornist Clark Terry (who she played with extensively in the '90s and early 2000s) and the late tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson (who she toured Europe and the United States with on more than one occasion). Cuenca has been employed on several of Terry's CDs (including The Hymn on Candid, Top and Bottom Brass on Chiaroscuro, and Herr Ober: Live at Birdland Neuburg on Nagel-Heyer), and the other major artists who have used her on their albums range from veteran tenor saxophonist/Count Basie alumni Frank Foster (as in "Shiny Stockings") to trumpeter Eddie Henderson. Cuenca has also played with the Vienna Art Orchestra, a big band based in Vienna, Austria.