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*MILFORD GRAVES Grand Unification
(Tzadik) Rating: NNNNN
A tabla-trained drum master who accompanied 60s
free jazz heavyweights like Albert Ayler, Sonny
Sharrock and Don Pullen, Milford Graves stopped
recording his percussive outbursts a decade ago to
focus his considerable energy on teaching and
cultivating his herb garden. Grand Unification was
well worth the wait.
The long-overdue disc is a solo percussion
recording, but anyone expecting a thin collection of
multi-tracked drum solos begging for added
instrumentation is out of luck. Graves rewrites the
rules of the drum, playing three or four different
rhythms at the same time while moving between his
hand-painted kit and sets of tablas, shekeres,
dumbeks, djembes, gongs and his own vocalising
-- falling somewhere between scatting and
yodelling. So full is the sound that you have to
keep
reminding yourself that this is a solo session and
not
a full orchestra of drummers, and while Graves'
elaborate compositional system, sketched out in
words and charts in the liner notes, is baffling,
the
overall results are nothing short of hypnotizing.