Milford Graves, singular drummer and polymath, dies at 79
by Giovanni Russonello
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- By the time Milford Graves took up the jazz drum kit, in his early 20s, he had spent years playing timbales in Afro-Latin groups. But on the kit he was confronted with the new challenge of using foot pedals as well as his hands. Rather than learn the standard jazz technique, he drew from what he already knew.
In the Latin ensembles, wed be doing dance movements while we were playing, he remembered in a 2018 profile in The New York Times. So I said: Thats all Ill do. Im going to start dancing down below. I started dancing on the high-hat.