Rest in Peace - Milford Graves
Some months ago we lost the music legend Milford Graves. Milford Graves was a master percussionist and healer. He taught at Bennington College in Vermont. I went there for one year in 1999 and I had the chance to study with him. It was one semester but he connected me with a musical energy that has fed me throughout the next 20 years. On registration day I was trying to get into his improvisation ensemble. As a freshman that was a dicey proposition, but during orientation I had already endeared myself to some of the older players at the school and they knew that I wasn’t a total newbie on the bass. When I got up to Milford Graves in line I told him I’d like to register for his class but that it generally doesn’t include freshmen. He looked at me and said “can you play"?”. I said yes confidently, which was true, I could play. He registered me right there. I was very excited about the class.
The first session was such a rush. With a really large group of musicians on different instruments with different skill levels Milford Graves both conducted, reacted, suggested and encouraged. There was an openness and a joy in that room that was really different from the musical spaces I had been in. High school and college musicians can be relentlessly competitive, often to the detriment of the music. This was different, it was much more collaborative and inspired.
At the end of the first or second session Milford Graves held my electric bass and said this was the first time he had touched the instrument. He laid it on his lap, contemplated for a moment and coaxed sounds out of it I had never heard. He had a sense of harmonics, of physics that was audible. He understood music to the point where understanding feels like the wrong word. There was no friction observable to me.
Milford told amazing stories, including talking about saving a Cuban band that was struggling with nothing but a cowbell. Apparently the band couldn’t get their groove right and the bandleader asked Milford to stop their gig after Milford’s gig and help the band out. All Milford brought was a cowbell, but he said that was all he needed. He brought the right feel in and Milford said the dance floor filled up, the solos got more rambunctious. I didn’t understand the power a cowbell can over a have a 12-piece band or a dance floor but now I have no doubt.
Many of Milford’s guidances were very loose in the class, a little guidance to just get this or that started. On a night when the improvisation had kind of run dry Milford told the class “play like the cops are coming, play like you know the cops are coming”. He asked a drummer named Paul who was one of the more senior players in the class to set it off. Paul started smashing the cymbals and cooking up the loudest sounds we had probably heard since the class started in September. The class looked please with this development and we were ready to let rip. Abruptly Milford halted the class, “no no no! that’s not how it’s done”. This level of binary authority wasn’t common in this class. Milford simply added “when we were playing in New York, we didn’t want the cops to find us. If we knew the cops were coming we played as quiet as we could, but we had to keep playing”. For the next twenty five minutes we all played at this whisper level that’s unlike anything I’ve ever done. Solos came and went with saxophonists whispering into their reed, guitar players found out the volume knobs on their amps went down.
My story is one of the smallest ones. So many musicians connected with Milford Graves throughout his life and I am so thankful for the energy that he put into the world. I’m glad I got a chance to spend a semester studying with him. Rest in peace to you Milford Graves.