Milford Graves, Arthur Doyle, Hugh Glover: Children of the Forest (Black Editions Archive)

Team 2023!! One of our favorite archival releases of the year.

Rich Mudge writes:

“Fantastic archival release of sessions that Graves recorded in his basement. All of these session dates are from the months leading up to the trio recordings that were released as Bäbi.

The first LP kicks things off with the same trio blasting through 3 sequentially numbered pieces just over a week before the sessions for Bäbi; these display a similar spiritual fervor albeit with slightly different instrumentation (Glover plays klaxon and the Haitian one-note trumpet the vaccine). Prior to reading the liner notes I thought that the sequencing is interesting as the recordings work backwards from the trio recordings to Glover/Graves duets to a Graves solo piece, seemingly taking the listener back to the (poly?)rhythmic foundations of the music. This is the way that Graves had them sequenced on the original 1/4" reel.

Yes, this is blasting, energetic free jazz and it is also free jazz that you can dance to that perfectly merges mind, body and soul. It's better said by someone who was there: the words of Hugh Glover from the interview with Jake Meginsky in the liner notes: ‘It has always been a mystery to me how Cuban drummers in Bata were able to modulate the rhythm and the meter. Well, it takes more than one player to do it Cuban style. Prof (Graves) shows you can do it as one player. The reason he’s able to do it is because he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the rhythms of the Caribbean, rhythms of Africa, plus rhythms of jazz. He can move around without losing the feel.’

Features some beautiful Val Wilmer photos, too.

A great addition to the Milford Graves canon.”