{"id":307462,"date":"2018-02-01T10:08:19","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T15:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmusicusa.wpengine.com\/?p=307462"},"modified":"2022-01-13T13:07:04","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T18:07:04","slug":"milford-graves-sounding-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmusicusa.org\/nmbx\/milford-graves-sounding-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Milford Graves: Sounding the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is difficult to place Milford Graves into a category. He is lauded as a master drummer of the 1960s avant-garde jazz scene, credited with inventing the martial arts form yara,<\/em> and is established as both an herbalist and acupuncturist in New York City. Additionally, Graves is a passionate researcher of human biology and brings that knowledge to all of his work.<\/p>\n

Milford Graves\u2019s music career began with improvisation. As a young kid, he taught himself to play by experimenting with the sounds he could make on a drum set in the foyer of his home in Jamaica, Queens. His professional career began around 1961 with the McKinley-Graves Band, a funky Latin jazz ensemble he co-led in the neighborhood.\u00a0 The following year, he led the Milford Graves Latino Quintet with pianist Chick Corea, bassist Lyle Atkinson, conga artist Bill Fitch, and saxophonist Pete Yellen. His career accelerated to place him in the New York Art Quartet, which led him to create two independently released records with pianist Don Pullen. By his mid-twenties, Graves was recognized by artists such as Philly Jo Jones, Elvin Jones, and Max Roach as a drummer with an innovative approach to the instrument, as well as a unique voice in the music scene. His residency at Slugs in 1967 with Albert Ayler is still discussed among musicians today, as is his performance with Ayler at John Coltrane\u2019s funeral.\u00a0 Graves went on to teach at Bennington College for 39 years and is recognized as professor emeritus by the institution.<\/p>\n

Yet, to understand his music one must also inquire into the full scope of his creative pursuits.\u00a0 Within athletic communities he is known for bringing his ambidextrous drumming into the martial arts through the creation of yara<\/em>, an improvised martial art that focuses on flexibility and dexterity.\u00a0 Graves taught yara<\/em> at his studio in Queens from 1971 to 2000. Similarly, numerous people have visited Graves over the years for his acupuncture practice and to study herbalism. During my first lesson with Graves, he used software that he engineered to record my heartbeat and play back a melody that was derived from my EKG.<\/p>\n

When I was first introduced to Milford Graves\u2019s work, I defaulted to the mode of thinking I was accustomed to\u2014that of genre. Even as I was searching for a concept of universal music<\/a>, I couldn’t help but perceive Graves\u2019s polymathic interests within the stilted categories of martial arts, herbalism, and avant-garde jazz. As I spent more and more time with the artist, I became increasingly unsatisfied with my understanding of his work. Graves employs the scientific method and a vast understanding of biology within his music. He draws connections between analog and digital motions\u2014continuous motions vs. striking different points\u2014in both the martial arts and drumming. He publishes essays<\/a>, creates works of sculpture<\/a>, and has recently played drums in a live experiment for non-embryonic stem cells<\/a>. Yet, this is merely a list of actions taken, and I have long felt that each one is an expression of something much more profound. As I prepared for my recent conversation with Graves, I identified three fundamentals that permeate his work: energy, freedom, and healing.<\/p>\n

\"Miford<\/a>

Miford Graves and Aakash Mittal<\/p><\/div>\n

Energy<\/strong><\/p>\n

At its core, Milford Graves’s work sculpts energy. This became evident to me during a previous visit to his house when he was doing some healing work on one of his martial arts students. Graves had recorded the electrical signal from an injured muscle and was feeding the signal back to the damaged tissue with the aid of an acupuncture needle and some wire. The goal was to aid the healing process by using electrical stimulation and specific harmonic frequencies to regenerate the damaged tissue. While this was taking place, we were simultaneously listening to a sonificiation of the damaged tissue\u2019s signal using software Graves had coded. He explained to me that the sound of the speaker, the image of the waveform, and the electricity in the needle were all different expressions of the same signal. This was a revelatory moment for me with regard to understanding Graves\u2019s work. Each of the disciplines he utilizes functions as an expression of energy. That energy can manifest kinetically through the martial arts or sonically on the drum set. The kinetic motion of yara <\/em>can be applied with sticks in hand to a cymbal, creating a sonification of the martial arts form itself. Similarly the vibration of the drums can be translated into soundless motion. Graves utilizes this approach among his various interests. In his essay \u201cMusic Extensions of Infinite Dimensions,\u201d which was published in John Zorn\u2019s anthology Arcana V<\/em>, Graves concludes with a statement about the importance of consuming watercress and parsley in order to \u201ctransmit high quality solar energy into the biological system.\u201d In his work, Graves applies the relationship of eating food to creating electricity within the body, a process that also pumps the heart and sounds the drum. Whether he is tending his garden, practicing acupuncture, or playing improvised music, Milford Graves approaches each activity as a harmonic of the same fundamental.<\/p>\n

Freedom<\/strong><\/p>\n

Milford Graves\u2019s drumming is often associated with the \u201cfree-jazz\u201d movement of the 1960s. On the surface, this is often described as a freedom from the previous era\u2019s harmonic structure and traditional forms. When I further explored that musical community, it became evident that the word freedom was used in a much larger context. Among the freedoms that emerge are freedom of thought, freedom of the spirit, and freedom of sound. Albums such as John Coltrane\u2019s Intersteller Space <\/em>and Albert Ayler\u2019s Spiritual Unity <\/em>traversed the boundaries of music and entered the realm of trance experience and conceptual journey. Within this context, Milford Graves offered a unique perspective on freedom. Through his understanding of the fundamentals of energy, Graves\u2019s music incorporates a freedom of motion that stretches beyond traditional audience\/performer dynamics. In the New York jazz scene today, a story circulates about the time Milford Graves picked up John Zorn mid-solo and carried him around the stage while Zorn continued improvising. Through the improvised use of his voice and storytelling, Graves\u2019s performances come across as a joyous ritual that loosens up the listener and offers the first step down the path of freedom. The experience of Graves\u2019s multidisciplinary work suggests a freedom from the limiting nature of our mind, which is compelled to categorize and shape the world around us. As Graves re-harmonizes those shapes and brings us back to the fundamental, I believe we are given a glimpse of what true freedom means.<\/p>\n

Healing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Artists frequently talk about the healing power of music, but it rarely goes beyond simple conversation. Milford Graves has taken it upon himself to do the research behind it. As I learn more about Graves\u2019s work, I find that his use of energy and freedom is often purposed for healing. His understanding of a listener\u2019s automatic sub-vocalization and the effect the vibrating tympanic membrane (part of the ear drum) can have on other organs informs his improvisations. This results in musical performances that could be perceived as a sonic massage as well as a concert. In this way, Graves is successfully bridging scientific, artistic, and spiritual methodologies in order to free people from societal constraints and remind them of the energy that already exists within. This leads us to what I find to be one of the most challenging aspects of understanding his work. Rather than contributing a body of compositions to an archive or entertaining audiences with his virtuosity, Graves is primarily interested in collaborating with biology itself. This results in a music that mutates, adapts, and transforms in the same manner that our heartbeat fluctuates in reaction to our bloodstream or our various organs create a polyrhythm of life processes.\u00a0 Janina Wellmann writes in her book The Form of Becoming<\/em> that \u201c[t]he tension of organic life finds temporary resolutions in rhythm, but always, in its onward aspiration, points forward into the future.\u201d Graves\u2019s work draws from the rhythms of movement, energy, and sound to support transformation and propel the journey forward.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Creative Spaces<\/strong><\/p>\n

I walk up toward Milford Graves’s house on a chilly and grey day in January. Among a row of ordinary houses and barren twisted trees sits a single house decorated with a mosaic of colored stones and glass that ascends the walls and accentuates the windows.\u00a0In a recent public interview with Graves, the writer John Corbett referred to this house as a secular \u201ctemple.\u201d The house is a work of art in and of itself. From a distance the designs appear to be geometric, but on a closer inspection each mosaic is filled with frenetic momentum and the unique shape of each piece hints of arrhythmia. The golden ratio\u2014expressed as a nautilus shell\u2014is painted next to the front door. It is a meeting place for creative people from various disciplines and walks of life brought together by Milford Graves. I know from my previous visits that I need to approach our conversation as an improviser rather than as an interviewer. Before entering the house, I meditate on the one question I want to approach within our talk: how does Milford Graves utilize music, the martial arts, and biology to sculpt energy, gain freedom, and create healing in the world? Then I open the door and walk inside.<\/p>\n

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