![]() ![]() He would go on to win a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000, with which he bought laboratory equipment so he could continue his heartbeat research in the basement of his home in Jamaica, Queens. Later he was hired by Bennington College in Vermont for its music faculty, a job he held for 38 years. In the 1960s, at the same time he became known as a visionary jazz drummer with Albert Ayler and Sun Ra, he earned an associate medical degree and ran a veterinarian lab in Manhattan. “This is how the heart is behaving between the beats.”Ĭurators of ‘Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal,’ Anthony Elms of the Institute for Contemporary Art (left) and Mark Christman of Ars Nova Workshop. “It’s the micro-rhythms, how the heart sets itself between the pulses,” said ICA curator Anthony Elms. Rather it is the computer generated sonification of electrical impulses that make the heart beat, creating a crackling, constantly shifting sonic landscape. You will not hear the familiar rhythm normally associated with the heart’s beating muscle: thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP. The opening room of the exhibition is wired with speakers playing back computerized tones based on heart recordings. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsorįor decades Graves has been recording heartbeats for study and manipulation. While Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal gives an overview of his musical career, it also presents the wide range of interests that inform his creative practice. Graves is known in the music world as a groundbreaking free jazz drummer. A video installation shows him practicing and teaching this art, developed from his study of the movements of the praying mantis. Milford Graves created a new form of martial arts called Yara, which he taught in his garden in Queens from 1971 to 2000. Yet another is filled with video monitors running loops of footage showing Graves practicing Yara, a martial arts practice of his own invention. Another features Graves’ hand-painted drum kit and African-inspired garb he designed and wore for performances. One of the rooms is crammed with sculptures made of plywood that look scientific, flickering computer screens, anatomical skeletons, and African drums. While it may seem unusual that the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania should give all of its gallery rooms to an exhibit about a musician, the life and mind of drummer Milford Graves more than fills them. ![]()
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