Milford Graves, the pioneer jazz drummer, professor, inventor, herbalist, visual and martial artist, died as Lars Gotrich of NPR reports. He was 79 years old. In 2018, Graves was diagnosed with amyloid cardiomyopathy – colloquially known as rigid heart syndrome – and said he would have six months to live.
Born in Queens in 1941, Graves was a pioneer of free jazz, making dozens of recordings throughout his life (including Giuseppi Logan Quartet, Albert Ayler Love Cryand Sonny Sharrock Black woman) along with several television and cinema projects. He was professor emeritus of music at Bennington College, where he taught from 1973 to 2012. Known for attracting musical influences from all over the world, he mastered African polyrhythms and studied Indian tabla and Latin jazz timpanas. He helped found the New York Art Quartet in the 1960s with saxophonist John Tchicai, trombonist Roswell Rudd and bassist Lewis Worrell, and is credited with helping to release jazz percussion from its time-keeping role. He played at John Coltrane’s funeral in 1967. Graves worked as a consultant for the New York City Board of Education and PS 201 in Harlem. In 2000, he received a Guggenheim scholarship for musical composition. A 2018 documentary called Complete praying mantis explored his musical philosophies alongside performances from around the world.
But Graves could hardly be defined as just a musician. In the 1960s, he graduated in associate medicine and ran a veterinary laboratory while performing with bandleaders like Albert Ayler and Sun Ra. In 1972, he invented Yara, a martial art based on Lindy Hop, African ritual dances and mantis movements. A talented visual artist, his work has been exhibited in several galleries and museums, including a 50-year retrospective that was recently shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.
He also worked as an acupuncturist and researched the connection between music and the natural rhythms of the human body, developing what he calls “biological music”. Graves believed that exposing the body to certain frequencies could have healing properties; He once treated a friend with cardiac arrhythmia with music, helping to synchronize the irregular heartbeat with a steady beat. After winning the Guggenheim scholarship, he used the money to buy laboratory equipment to continue his heartbeat research in his basement in Jamaica, Queens, and in 2017, he co-invented a process that can repair stem cells using vibrations from heartbeat and was awarded a patent. Graves also collaborated with some of the many contemporary musicians influenced by his work, including John Zorn, Sam Amidon (The next mountain), and Greg Fox, whose experiments with Graves’ bio-sensor devices appeared on the 2014 LP Mitral Transmission, in which Fox sought to find music in the natural rhythms of his body.
After his diagnosis, Graves’ research intensified as he sought to put his findings into practice, curing himself. Former students used to visit his basement and, after his diagnosis in 2018, documented and recorded his daily activity as he prepared for the exhibition at the ICA in Philadelphia. He hoped his research would continue with his students after his death.