Milford Graves (b. 1941 in Jamaica, Queens) is a percussionist, acupuncturist, herbalist, martial artist, programmer, and professor. A pioneer of Free Jazz, Graves was a member of the New York Art Quartet, whose iconic first recording in 1964 featured LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) reading his poem "Black Dada Nihilismus." In 1967, he played at John Coltrane’s funeral. A consummate autodidact with a syncretic approach, Graves invented a martial art form called "Yara" based on the movements of the praying mantis, African ritual dance, and The Lindy Hop. Shortly thereafter, Graves joined the Black Music Division at Bennington College, where he taught for 39 years and is now Professor Emeritus. In 2000, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and began to study human heart vibrations to better understand music’s healing potential, and in 2015 he received the Doris Duke Foundation Impact Award.
Milford Graves is the subject of a critically acclaimed, feature-length documentary, Milford Graves Full Mantis (2018). The documentary was directed by Jake Meginsky (a former student of Graves) and Neil Young. Additional notable recordings include In Concert At Yale University (with Don Pullen, 1966), Dialogue of the Drums (with Andrew Cyrille, 1974), Babi (1977), Meditation Among Us (1977), Real Deal (with David Murray, 1992), Grand Unification (1998), Beyond Quantum (with Anthony Braxton and William Parker, 2008), and Space/Time Redemption (with Bill Laswell, 2014). He continues to live and work in Jamaica, Queens, in the home that once belonged to his grandmother.
Website: https://www.milfordgraves.com/
Bandcamp: https://milfordgraves.bandcamp.com/
Milford Graves is the subject of a critically acclaimed, feature-length documentary, Milford Graves Full Mantis (2018). The documentary was directed by Jake Meginsky (a former student of Graves) and Neil Young. Additional notable recordings include In Concert At Yale University (with Don Pullen, 1966), Dialogue of the Drums (with Andrew Cyrille, 1974), Babi (1977), Meditation Among Us (1977), Real Deal (with David Murray, 1992), Grand Unification (1998), Beyond Quantum (with Anthony Braxton and William Parker, 2008), and Space/Time Redemption (with Bill Laswell, 2014). He continues to live and work in Jamaica, Queens, in the home that once belonged to his grandmother.
Website: https://www.milfordgraves.com/
Bandcamp: https://milfordgraves.bandcamp.com/
Andrew Cyrille and Milford Graves | Dialogue of the Drums | Vision Festival 24
Milford Graves and Andrew Cyrille recount stories on how they first met, and the two drummers continue a decades long collaboration with a duet at Cyrille’s Lifetime Achievement celebration at the Vision Festival..More
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