I love you Milford graves!!!

It's actually free to watch if you have Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Milford-Graves-Full-Mantis/dp/B07NGRL22J/
There are so many great moments, but the footage with Milford and dancer Min Tanaka in a Japanese gymnasium in a school for children with cognitive disabilities is absolutely priceless.
I also saw both of his incredible sets at Big Ears. I remember feeling a little bad for Jason Moran...I felt like Milford was in a different, transcendental league!

Fantastic film, everyone should watch it.

I remember feeling a little bad for Jason Moran...I felt like Milford was in a different, transcendental league!

He was, but generous about it, he brought Moran along with him.

I had a great experience at the Big Ears festival this year with [pianist] Jason Moran. People were wondering, “Is that going to work?” I talked to Jason [before the set], and he’s cool. But [during the concert] Jason all of a sudden stands up off the stool, takes his shirt off, and says, “I’m hot, man!” And I looked at him, and Jason got back down and took some sort of rattle or something and started bouncing it all off the strings on that piano, and [now] he wasn’t that cool guy playing Monk for nobody, man! Jason got so emotional. And people noticed that! And I’m saying, “No, he got possessed, man.” All that coolness went out the window. If I have any part of it, he’s not going to be cool on me. You can still look conservative…but you’re gonna get more animated, and then people feel that. When you get animated, people say, “They’re feeling it!”

https://www.moderndrummer.com/article/january-2019-milford-graves/

Really loved Full Mantis. That footage with Min Tanaka and the kids was just the best.

To think he could've spent years in jail..

:-(

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/nyregion/milford-graves-drummer.html

“He did pretty much everything on his own, and it’s very important that his work continue, so he wants to leave everything in the right places with the right people,” his wife, Lois, said. “He knows he has more work to do and he’s going to get it done.”

right on. what an absolute gem of a human, a total champ. i wish him the strength to live many, many more years. to continue his research and to grace this world with his unparalleled art

His two duo albums with Don Pullen have been combined into a single CD. My copy hasn't arrived yet, but it's en route.

yeahhh, i've ordered that, along with CvD's new Joe McPhee thing.

Amazing article about Graves. Dude is truly an American hero.

Everyone should watch Full Mantis even if you don't have any interest in jazz, drums, or unfamiliar with his music, it isn't really about that, it is a movie about life

Interesting. Still alive 2 years or so after doctor thought he might only have 6 months

Since the 1970s, Mr. Graves has studied the heartbeat as a source of rhythm and has maintained that recording musicians’ most prevalent heart rhythms and pitches, and then incorporating those sounds into their playing, would help them produce more personal music.

He also believes that heart problems can be helped by recording a patient’s unhealthy heart and musically tweaking it into a healthier rhythm to use as biofeedback.

full mantis is such an incredible movie

Interesting. Still alive 2 years or so after doctor thought he might only have 6 months

Not surprised. I've never in my life encountered anyone who was as health-conscious and, for lack of a better term, in tune with the human body as Milford.

sounds like one of the more apt terms tbh !

I remember once during class he asked a student to hold Milford’s wrist, to feel his pulse. Milford closed his eyes, seemed to shiver a little, and the student said, “wait, the pulse is gone...[distressingly long pause]...[Milford shivers again]...oh, there it is.”

By day, Milford Graves is a mild-mannered jazz musician who leads a quiet life tending his zen garden and looking after a curious collection of African artifacts. When night falls, and duty calls, he becomes Full Mantis: a master of martial arts and the world's most dangerous freeform assassin. He can make your heart — or his — stop in an instant. He can unleash a killer fury of syncopated blows. But he always knows when to fall back in the groove, jack, so don't you skip a beat.

Hahaha

My copy of The Complete Yale Concert, 1966 finally arrived today after being shipped from Chicago to New Jersey on August 4.

Wow, Full Mantis. What an incredible film.

'Full Mantis' not just favorite music film of the year, it's just... favorite full stop

Like absolutely anyone who posts to this list, I can nearly promise you you want to see this film

Yes, it's an all time great!

BTW, you should sign up for this:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-discussion-of-milford-graves-full-mantis-with-director-jake-meginsky-tickets-128016592073

I'd seen his name on the credits of various records, but I didn't know anything about him personally until I read the chapter on Babi in John Corbett's Pick Up the Pieces. I'm making a point of seeing this film ASAP.

Finally got a chance to watch this doc - really good! I just wish someone had warned me how unexpectedly trippy it is. I took an edible before I watched it and that was uh, very interesting

thanks for the suggestion

you've been warned!

It really is, I got a bit drunk while watching it but the combined experience of the film and alcohol was more druglike/hallucinatory.

This is one of those threads that fills me with dread whenever it's revived.

I thought about that right after I posted, yeah. Sorry. I considered not clicking on the Ghedalia Tazartes thread yesterday for the same reason

watching the doc is totally like having a really good / profound trip. it's wonderful.

nourishing, inspiring, etc.

where did people watch this? is it worth paying for on vimeo

This is one of those threads that fills me with dread whenever it's revived.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, February 10, 2021 10:21 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Seriously, especially considering his recent health issues.

And yeah, the doc is brilliant. Absolutely a must-see for anyone even mildly curious about...well, music.

Pretty sure it's on Kanopy, possibly also Amazon, and is out on DVD.

(xp)

I did love this film, the warm videography captured the intimacy of his house and garden. It had a balance of his history, his current interests, and his philosophical thoughts.

NPR just got confirmation that Milford Graves — drummer, professor, researcher, gardener — died today from congestive heart failure. His music and way of being was an elevation, rhythmically moving with the universe.

— Lars Gotrich 🍷🌊 (@totalvibration) February 12, 2021

:-(

Gutted

what a lame week

This picture of Milford Graves and Chick Corea in the same band (led by conga player Roger "Montego Joe" Sanders) is great.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuEIzCLWgAUdIbN.jpg

Glad I saw him once, with Jason Moran in a packed theater at Big Ears in 2018.

Glad I saw him live too — his folding chair, his bongos, it was a huge inspiration for me. I hope his beautiful spirit is at peace.

very sad. full mantis is a very enjoyable watch for those who haven't seen it.

i saw him play in the moma with john zorn in front of the pollock exhibit. def one of the best things that ever happened to me

fuck

RIP. Listening to Black Woman now.

shit. what an amazing artist.

How is the Yale Concert reissue???? In depth, please.

In terms of sound quality, or in terms of performance? It's mastered from ultra-clean vinyl, presumably Graves' own unopened copies, so there's a tiny bit of hiss and crackle here and there but not much. The recording quality is good if primitive — it was clearly taped live in a room not built for recording, but it's plenty loud, Graves' drums often louder than Pullen's piano. The music is extremely free, pounding and clanging, as heavy and out as free jazz ever got. I'd call it essential, and I'm sure it's gonna go out of print again very soon, so for anyone who doesn't already have it:

https://www.corbettvsdempsey.com/2020/09/30/record-complete-yale-concert-1966__trashed/

If you can find a copy of thhe Bäbi reissue (Corbett vs Dempsey is out of stock), it's essential, too, especially since it contains a second, previously unreleased CD of the same trio (Graves, Arthur Doyle, and Hugh Glover) from 1969:

https://www.corbettvsdempsey.com/2018/10/16/album-babi__trashed/

Shamefully unfamiliar with his work, any recommendations for where to start?

For something relatively straightforward (as in, he's playing a "beat" through much of it), try Sonny Sharrock's Black Woman. Albert Ayler's Love Cry is kinda easy to get into as well, at least as far as Ayler/free jazz is concerned. For something more recent, try Beyond Quantum, a 2004 or so trio album with Anthony Braxton on saxes and William Parker on bass.

It's funny to me that record labels bullshit about stuff like that for artists that probably don't sell a ton - pretty low value false advertising.

I was under the impression these were just vinyl pressings of the CvsDs CDs, the SV website even mentions Corbett's liners, so it is weird phrasing at best. I'm betting they are using the word "sourced" in a very...er flexible manner.

"Once upon a time, there were master tapes for this album."

I got an answer from Superior Viaduct! The label owner says:

The tapes were found prior to Milford’s passing.

So if you were hesitant about buying, go for it, I guess.

New live set coming in June! WEBO is a live recording from June 1991 with Charles Gayle, William Parker, and Graves. It's coming out digitally and as a fancy 3LP set with a bunch of extra stuff in the box.

Bandcamp pre-order link

A legendary concert by one of the great unrecorded bands in free jazz history is here at last. WEBO, the third installment in the Black Editions Archive series of previously unreleased recordings from Milford Graves' private tape library, roars into the station June 21st. For the first time, Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, & William Parker —three lions of the Black American jazz avant-garde— are finally heard together on record across three audiophile-quality LPs for two brutalizingly joyous hours of real ju-ju & musical mastery.

The trio of Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, & William Parker gave only seven public performances between 1985 & 2013, & released no recordings. Their June 1991 two-night stand at the short-lived Lower East Side venue Webo, long referenced as a signal event in New York free jazz’s 1990s resurgence, has been a topic of discussion among close followers of the music for decades. In the uncompromising grassroots spirit of the 1970s New York Musicians Organization & loft jazz movements from which they had emerged, the band produced & promoted the Webo concerts themselves. Photography and audio recording were not allowed at the concerts, & this official recording, commissioned by the artists, was never released —until now.

So vivid was the lore surrounding Webo that it topped the list of recordings sought by Black Editions Archive from Graves’ private collection. The tapes maximally substantiate eyewitness accounts describing extra-sensory levels of communication within the band, & the extraordinary clarity & impact of their performance. From William Parker's liner notes: “Imagine a village or choir of drummers, horn players & strings. You can hear the bass & drums churning with a call & response, a melodic-rhythmic propulsion. In reality there is only one drummer, one bass, & one saxophone.”

Age 52 at the time of these concerts, Charles Gayle had only recently made his first recordings. To all but the most immediate insiders he was still more myth than reality. Milford Graves, two months out from his 50th birthday, was about halfway into his body of recorded work & had sanctioned just one appearance on a commercially released recording in the last 14 years (Pieces of Time by an all drummer quartet with Kenny Clarke, Andrew Cyrille, & Famoudou Don Moye). William Parker, the young man of the group at age 39, was a mere fifty entries into his discography, now 500+ entries & counting. All three musicians were at least a quarter century into passionately developing a personal & collective music rooted in the cultural values & radical aesthetics of the 1960s & ‘70s Black American avant-garde.

30+ years after the Webo concerts, Black Editions Archive is honored to make these historical recordings available to the public. The x3 LPs are presented in a heavy black, pigment-stamped box with mounted cover painting along with liner notes by William Parker, commentary from Alan Licht (witness to night one of the Webo concerts), a reproduction of the original concert flyer, & a set of 6x9 printed photos from the 2021 Webo reunion outside MoMA PS1, Queens, NY. Cover Painting by Jeff Schlanger / musicWitness, made June 8, 1991, at Webo during the band’s performance. Vinyl pressed at RTI, lacquers cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. —Michael Ehlers