I love you Milford graves!!!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/feb/13/milford-graves-jazz-drummer-dies-aged-79

Thanks guys!
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. Ah, say no more, I'll get on it, and seek out the Corbett V Dempsey and Ayler (Black Woman has long been a v. personal talisman).

I think I'm mainly just listening to the New York Art Quartet's Call It Art collection today because of course they are one of the best bands ever to exist

My oiriginal copy of the New York Art Quartet's ESP Disc. My first exposure to Milford Graves! Sorry for the terrible physical shape the cover is in, i got it when I was 13, still one of my favorite albums. pic.twitter.com/KD2Iqzx7tT

— Alan Braufman (@AlanBraufman) February 14, 2021

"Love Cry" is the first time I ever heard him, when I was getting into jazz and trying to find all these records/artists I was reading about. His drumming struck me immediately, different from anything else I had heard, flat & cardboard-y, the drums didn't drive the music, they pushed and spread everything out, they were everywhere at once. I always kept a look out for his name, "Milford Graves" always signified an otherness to me, that if his name was on there it was going to be a special record.

And not a huge discography (or at least one that was easy to track down) so aside from those ESP-Disk records and dodgy boots of "Babi" and "Nommo" over the yrs he was always someone I looked out for, esp after seeing that Mouthful of Sweat footage of him with Brotz & Parker. And I knew from interviews that he had a totally different take on the world then even other "out" dudes

But man that movie made me fall in love him so much more and suddenly so much of his music & playing made real sense to me, all the talk of Chi & heartbeats & cosmic radiation & nervous system electricity, going back I can hear all of that so clearly in the music.

The scene with him & Min Tanaka playing for the autistic children is maybe the most powerful example of music as an artform I've ever seen

Anyway, a beautiful soul and player and thinker and man, RIP

Director Alan Roth has made his documentary The Breath Courses Through Us, about the New York Art Quartet, available on Vimeo for a short while. It documents their 2000s reunion, when they opened for Sonic Youth:

https://vimeo.com/59617230

Yeah, Left, that's a perfect example of shifting blame and responsibility from the offenders to the victims. Pretty reprehensible.

Lol how did that get there.

My memories of the ‘99 NYAQ show are of Milford being extremely poorly miked (at least, the PA mix in the hall — the mix in the film sounds much better), and of Reggie Workman killing it. It was the only time I’d seen Workman, and I was floored.

I also remember their reunion record being meandering and generally awful, but I haven’t listened to it in years.

and of Reggie Workman killing it. It was the only time I’d seen Workman, and I was floored.

I saw Workman with John Zorn, Derek Bailey and Susie Ibarra at Tonic one night. I was extremely surprised, because I had always thought of him as a total jazz guy (even if he worked in free-ish contexts at times) but this was obviously Improv with a capital I.

Beautiful piece by percussionist-composer Ben Hall: https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/the-patterns-are-already-there-remembering-milford-graves

(Slight correction: the Black Music Division at Bennington was dissembled/absorbed into the Music Division in 1985, not in the mid-‘90s.)

Jason Moran
@morethan88
6:30 PM · Apr 1, 2021
Graves/Moran live at @BigEarsFestival
2018 releases at midnight. Features another performance from @ICAPhiladelphia
/ @ArsNovaWorkshop
. Mind-Body.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ex7OGgJW8AISGn5?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

https://jasonmoran.bandcamp.com/album/graves-moran-live-at-big-ears

The new Brotzman/Graves/Parker lp is predictably very good, the stuff with Graves talking to the crowd and singing on the fourth side is just fantastic

https://milfordgraves-blackeditionsarchive.bandcamp.com/album/historic-music-past-tense-future

rewatched full mantis last night, still such a pleasure

"A mind-body deal" can be purchased directly from the inventory press website. free shipping in the US + a holiday code i found on their instagram meant it was only $36

Thanks! the xpost New York Art Quartet album is all here:
https://newyorkartquartet.bandcamp.com/

Bandcamp also has MG's own sole ESP-Disk, Percussion Ensemble, with Sonny Morgan:
https://milfordgraves.bandcamp.com/album/percussion-ensemble

re: full mantis:

This video is currently unavailable to watch in your location

i wish I would've bought / downloaded / ripped this when i had the chance. anybody know how i can see it?

nvm, i figured it out.

by the way, the "mind-body deal" book is fantastic!

Also: https://jasonmoran.bandcamp.com/album/graves-moran-live-at-big-ears

new '76 recording from the Glover/Doyle trio:

https://www.strandedrecords.com/collections/newsletter/products/milford-graves-arthur-doyle-hugh-glover-children-of-the-forest-2xlp?mc_cid=de146c7992&mc_eid=ad2240ad80

Been trying to convince myself I don't need this. I need this, don't I?

It’s pretty great…

Prolly shoulda put this here.

LA Institute for Contemporary Art is hosting a Milford Graves listening party for a new album, and a screening of the film about him the next day at their Arts District location. RSVP required, and I don't know if any are left.

https://www.theicala.org/en/events/494-milford-graves-album-release-listening-party

This is the Children of the Forest release noted above.

And the film is Full Mantis

Interesting that the Corbett vs Dempsey reissue of the Complete Yale Concert from a couple years back made a point to note that the original master tapes were lost so they sourced from a mint condition original LP, yet the new Superior Viaduct reissue claims that it's sourced from the original master tapes.

Yeah, I think they might be bullshitting and hoping no one notices.

Unless...I mean, there's a chance that Graves himself didn't know where the tapes were, but that someone in his family found them after he died...but I think it would have been bigger news.

I have sent the following email to Superior Viaduct:

Hi!

Your website says that your Milford Graves reissues are "sourced from the original master tapes." The Corbett vs Dempsey CD reissue of the same recordings, from 2020, says, "The master tapes for both volumes of the Yale concert were lost. This reissue was culled from mint copies of the LPs, transferred and noise-reduced by Alex Inglizian."

Were the tapes found by another member of Graves' family after his death? What's the story here?

Thanks

I guess it would answer my question about whether I should upgrade my CvsDs

There's no way the tapes were miraculously discovered and they just failed to mention it in the copy. They are surely bullshitting just like every other record label does.

Also CvD are (imo) a trustworthy entity and I agree — if the tapes were suddenly found, that would be news and therefore worth mentioning

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