Milford Graves (August 20, 1941 – February 12, 2021) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, Professor Emeritus of Music,[3][4] researcher/inventor,[5][6] visual artist/sculptor,[7][8][9][10] gardener/herbalist,[11][12] and martial artist.

[13][14] Graves was noteworthy for his early avant-garde contributions in the 1960s with Paul Bley, Albert Ayler, and the New York Art Quartet, and is considered to be a free jazz pioneer, liberating percussion from its timekeeping role.

By the early 1960s, he was leading dance bands and playing in Latin/Afro Cuban ensembles in New York on bills alongside Cal Tjader and Herbie Mann.

[17] His group, the Milford Graves Latino Quintet, included saxophonist Pete Yellin, pianist Chick Corea, bassist Lisle Atkinson, and conga player Bill Fitch.

[18][19] In 1962, Graves heard the John Coltrane quartet with Elvin Jones, whose drumming made a strong impression.

[20] The following year, Graves acquired a standard drum set from pianist Hal Galper and began using it regularly.

[21] During a visit to New York in 1964, Logan introduced Graves to trombonist Roswell Rudd and saxophonist John Tchicai.

Graves "wound up playing with them for half an hour, astonishing Rudd and Tchicai, who promptly invited him to join what became The New York Art Quartet.

"[22] Tchicai also stated that Don Moore, the original New York Art Quartet bassist, "became so frightened of this wizard of a percussionist that he decided that this couldn't be true or possible and therefore refused to play with us.

"[23] That same year, Graves also participated in the "October Revolution in Jazz" organized by Bill Dixon,[24] and appeared on a number of recordings, including the New York Art Quartet's self-titled debut album, Giuseppi Logan's debut album, which also featured pianist Don Pullen and bassist Eddie Gómez, Paul Bley's Barrage, Montego Joe's Arriba!

Graves and Pullen soon formed a duo, and in 1966 they recorded and released In Concert at Yale University,[28] followed by Nommo, on their SRP ("Self Reliance Project") label.

[25][33] Graves recorded Black Woman with Sonny Sharrock in the late 1960s and began playing with drummers Andrew Cyrille and Rashied Ali on a series of concerts titled "Dialogue of the Drums.

)[3][35] In 1977, Graves released two albums under his own name: Bäbi, which featured reed players Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover, and Meditation Among Us, with a Japanese jazz quartet composed of Kaoru Abe, Toshinori Kondo, Mototeru Takagi, and Toshiyuki Tsuchitori.

With the NYAQ, Graves's snare drum was tuned high as was the norm, but already his tom-toms were producing a deeper sound than usual.

By the end of the 'sixties, though, he had dispensed with the snare and his three tom-toms were tuned as loosely as is common in rock today... Graves was probably the first American drummer to remove all of his bottom heads because of their tendency to absorb sound.

Sometimes he holds a huge mallet or maracas in the same hand as a regular drumstick, beating with this combination on the same surface or switching alternately from one beater to the other.

He occasionally takes a small pair of tuned bongoes, places them in front of him on the skin of one tom-tom and hits them in that position.

"[54] Graves was also very outspoken about his feelings concerning the role of the drummer: "I couldn't understand how a guy would sit and play a basic beat all the time.

According to Giovanni Russonello, Graves was "a kind of underground thought leader in martial arts, natural healing and cellular biology,"[13] preferring to "live in territory that's uncharted, which often means unseen,"[13] reflecting what John Corbett called "an axiom of adaptability, a sense that people need to be flexible to deal with new contexts and new challenges.

"[55] Writing in Artforum, Christoph Cox stated: "Graves has thrown himself into a massive multidisciplinary project that straddles the arts and sciences, traditional healing practices and the frontiers of cardiology and stem-cell research.

"[7] Many of Graves' interests revolved around what he called "biological music, a synthesis of the physical and mental, a mind-body deal.

"[5] One example is "Yara," a form of martial art that Graves, a former Police Athletic League boxing champ,[5] invented in the early 1970s, and that is "spontaneous improvised, and... reacting according to that particular situation,"[14] based on "the movements of the Praying Mantis, African ritual dance, and Lindy Hop.

[11] Graves recalled that his interest in maintaining a healthy lifestyle arose when, in his late teens, he began experiencing severe health problems as a result of regularly drinking cheap wine.

"[15] He stumbled on a recording of heart rhythms,[58] and "was astonished by the similarities between cardiac arrhythmias and Afro-Cuban drumming patterns.

Beyond the simple da-DUM of the heartbeat, he heard polyrhythmic pulsations, variable duration between beats, and a whole spectrum of frequencies.

These frequencies can then be translated into the audible spectrum and analyzed as sound (heart music), which is accomplished by using specific algorithms written for LabVIEW.

"[6] By playing the resulting sounds back to a person who acted as a source, Graves "found he can increase blood flow and possibly even stimulate cell growth.

The complexities you can hear in the sounds of one person's heartbeat are very similar to free jazz and if we were to make music that was in tune with the vibrations of our bodies, the results would be very powerful.

"[56] A 2020-2021 exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, entitled Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal showcased "a collection of Graves' hand-painted album covers and posters, idiosyncratic drum sets, multimedia sculptures, photographs, and costumes, with elements from his home, scientific studies, recording ephemera, and archival recordings, as well as space for performance and a reading room.

"[64] With Marshall Allen, Roscoe Mitchell, and Scott Robinson With Sam Amidon With Albert Ayler With Paul Bley With Anthony Braxton & William Parker With Peter Brötzmann and William Parker With Kenny Clarke/Andrew Cyrille/Famoudou Don Moye With Andrew Cyrille With Lowell Davidson With the Jazz Composer's Orchestra With Bill Laswell With Giuseppi Logan With Miriam Makeba with Montego Joe with Jason Moran With David Murray With New York Art Quartet With Don Pullen With Sonny Sharrock With Wadada Leo Smith With Sun Ra With Various Artists With John Zorn