My awareness of avant-garde jazz drummer Milford Graves owes much to the attention of jazz guitarist Karl Evangelista. Prior to encountering Evangelista’s work, I had been aware of Graves primarily as the drummer on Albert Ayler’s Love Cry album, released in 1967. However, Graves’ adventurous qualities can be traced back to 1962, when he first listened to Elvin Jones playing in John Coltrane’s quartet (which was also one of my own earliest encounters with avant-garde jazz).
Graves died this past February 12 at the age of 79. Last night at Bird & Beckett Books and Records, Evangelista reflected on his encounters with Graves during the last years of that drummer’s life. Those following Evangelista’s performances know that proceeds from those performances would go to supporting Graves during that period. That fundraising has continued to support the Milford Graves Memorial Fund; and last night’s Bird & Beckett performance was entitled simply For Milford Graves.
Rei Scampavia, Robert Lopez, and Karl Evangelista list night at Bird & Beckett (screen shot from the YouTube video of the performance)
That was also the title of the only music to be performed during the second set: roughly half an hour of free improvisation at its freest with Evangelista leading the Grex trio, whose other members were Rei Scampavia on keyboards and Robert Lopez on drums. This was my first encounter with Lopez. While the camera angles for the live-stream of last night’s performances were not optimal for viewing the drum kit, through the combination of ear and eye, one could appreciate the adventurous polyrhythms that Lopez evoked in Graves’ memory.
During the first set of the evening, Lopez was able to honor another particularly adventurous drummer, who, fortunately, is still with us. The selections included two of the movements from Evangelista’s Apura suite, which had been released for video streaming at the end of this past July. The drummer for that performance was Andrew Cyrille, whose command of polyrhythms made for some of the most interesting viewing of the video. Lopez’ interpretation of Evangelista’s charts triggered fond memories of not only the video but also my good fortune to have attended the performance when it was being recorded.
Evangelista’s selections for the first set coupled his own music with two other major avant-garde figures, Don Cherry and Alice Coltrane. The latter was featured with two of the tracks from her Journey In Satchidananda album. Readers may recall that Evangelista and Scampavia had given a duo interpretation of this album at Bird & Beckett in July of 2020, when live streaming was the only option for experiencing their jazz gigs.
Grex normally performs in that duo context. Last night, however, percussion was clearly necessary for honoring Graves’ spirit. Lopez provided just the right bridge to both Graves’ legacy and the continuing of that legacy through other adventurous drummers, such as Cyrille and Rashied Ali, who had been Coltrane’s drummer on Journey In Satchidananda. At the same time, last night’s Bird & Beckett gig offered a few connotations of a torch being passed; and the program’s trio work made it clear that the torch was in good hands.
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