Milford Graves Full Mantis

"Get out in nature." Milford Graves (b. 1941), one of the progenitors of free jazz, offers this advice for just about any artistic endeavor. If you want to learn design or painting, learn from nature. When training in the martial arts, Graves bought praying mantises, let them loose in his garden, and observed their movements (hence the title). He might also modify nature, as when he studies rhythms by hooking himself to a cardiopulmonary monitor and runs the results through computers. Graves can straddle the profound/crazy border, as when he claims to ingest cosmic energy from his plants, or convert the data of his senses to chi. His creative approach to life has worked well for him, though, and if he is a "character," he's an engaging one. The scenes of his abstract drumming carry undeniable power. Meginsky and Young give Graves plenty of space to talk, often over long shots of his beautiful home, garden, dojo, and lab. Recommended both for music collections and as biography.—John Hiett, formerly with Iowa City P.L.