Free-jazz drummer Milford Graves has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79, NPR's Lars Gotrich and NME have reported. A founding member of the New York Art Quartet in the 1960s Graves' musical explorations encompassed studies of Indian, Asian and African music. Val Wilmer in her 1977 book As Serious as Your Life was one of the first to explore Graves' innovations and put them in the context of the free-jazz maelstrom that he found himself at the centre of in the 60s taking part for instance in the October Revolution in Jazz festival in 1964. A documentary about Graves' life Full Mantis was released in 2018. His honours included a Guggenheim Fellowship. Graves was also a teacher on the music faculty of Bennington College in Vermont from 1973-2012.
The heart of it all --- MILFORD GRAVES.
— Jason Moran (@morethan88) February 13, 2021
Take time, take a soul, take a reading, make an extract, learn a dance, teach it to someone, grow a plant, savor the light, play the dark, and breathe. Thank you Milford for your love of souls. Into the garden we go. pic.twitter.com/qTGjyQEHqw
Online tributes included one from pianist and composer Jason Moran, who wrote on Twitter: ''Take time, take a soul, take a reading, make an extract, learn a dance, teach it to someone, grow a plant, savor the light, play the dark, and breathe. Thank you Milford for your love of souls. Into the garden we go.''
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