| Stories | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2000 | |||
| Recorded | June 25, 2000 | |||
| Studio | Avatar Studio, New York City | |||
| Genre | jazz, percussion music | |||
| Length | 1:01:45 | |||
| Label | Tzadik Records TZ 7062 | |||
| Producer | Milford Graves | |||
| Milford Graves chronology | ||||
| ||||
Stories is an album by American percussionist Milford Graves, recorded in June 2000 and released later that year by Tzadik Records. [1]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [2] |
In a review for AllMusic, François Couture wrote: "Milford Graves is a fantastic drummer for whom the simple act of hitting a drum calls for his whole body and mind to take over. He lives, thinks, and expresses himself through his contact with resounding objects. All he needed was an album that would do justice to his art. He had come close to it in 1998 with Grand Unification, his first solo CD for John Zorn's Tzadik label. With Stories, he might have recorded the best solo percussion album ever. On this playground, there are no limits to what Graves can do, but no artifices to alter the sound. The recording quality is incredible, better than on the previous album. Nothing is lost in the mix; everything comes through pure and lively. This is the first time Graves has been recorded so faithfully. The performances themselves also belong to the man's best work... Traditional music categories like 'world music,' 'jazz,' or even 'avant-garde' crumble miserably into dust as Graves pours his heart and soul into his playing, proving that all music is contained in the art of percussion. Very strongly recommended to anyone interested in percussion or simply wanting to hear what 'totally uninhibited expression' really means." [1]
The authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz called "Evolving Pathways" "one of the most powerful statements the drummer has yet to make on record," and commented: "he seems beyond genre, working in an area that transcends jazz percussion. Again, he chants, murmurs spells and moves between a bewildering array of percussion instruments... Graves has at last created a work the equal of his colossal talent." [2]
Writing for One Final Note, Derek Taylor remarked: "the degree to which the drummer's unique and total embrace of his instruments has remained consistent and beyond the reach of corruption is one of the immediately discernable and truly enlightening facets of this newly conceived chapter... Graves is a botanist, an herbalist and an acupuncturist. While these pursuits may color his musical endeavors, he is a drummer first and foremost in the minds of many listeners and Stories makes both his reach and his influence in this realm abundantly apparent." [3]
All compositions by Milford Graves.
John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2020 Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.
Marc Ribot is an American guitarist and composer.
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith is an American trumpeter and composer, working primarily in the field of creative music. He was one of three finalists for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Ten Freedom Summers, released on May 22, 2012.
Milford Graves was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, Professor Emeritus of Music, researcher/inventor, visual artist/sculptor, gardener/herbalist, and martial artist. Graves was noteworthy for his early avant-garde contributions in the 1960s with Paul Bley, Albert Ayler, and the New York Art Quartet, and is considered to be a free jazz pioneer, liberating percussion from its timekeeping role. The composer and saxophonist John Zorn referred to Graves as "basically a 20th-century shaman."
Susie Ibarra is a contemporary composer and percussionist who has worked and recorded with jazz, classical, world, and indigenous musicians. One of SPIN's "100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music," she is known for her work as a performer in avant-garde, jazz, world, and new music. As a composer, Ibarra incorporates diverse styles and the influences of Philippine Kulintang, jazz, classical, poetry, musical theater, opera, and electronic music. Ibarra remains active as a composer, performer, educator, and documentary filmmaker in the U.S., Philippines, and internationally. She is interested and involved in works that blend folkloric and indigenous tradition with avant-garde. In 2004, Ibarra began field recording indigenous Philippine music, and in 2009 she co-founded Song of the Bird King, an organization focusing on the preservation of Indigenous music and ecology.
James Pugliese is an American percussionist, drummer, composer and international recording artist on over 150 CDs of experimental, jazz and rock music.
Cyro Baptista is a Brazilian-born percussionist in jazz and world music. He creates many of the percussion instruments he plays.
The Big Gundown is the third studio album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.
Anthony Coleman is an avant-garde jazz pianist. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked with John Zorn on Cobra, Kristallnacht, The Big Gundown, Archery, and Spillane and helped push modern Jewish music into the 21st century.
IAO is the tenth studio album by John Zorn released in 2002 on the Tzadik label. It was inspired by Aleister Crowley and his follower, filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Its title is drawn from the Kabbalistic identity of IAO, the initials of Isis, Apophis and Osiris, used as a magical formula in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and in Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass.
50th Birthday Celebration Volume 2 is a live album of improvised music by Milford Graves and John Zorn documenting their performance at Tonic in September 2003 as part of Zorn's month-long 50th Birthday Celebration concert series.
Beyond Quantum is an album by American saxophonist Anthony Braxton, percussionist Milford Graves, and bassist William Parker recorded in 2008 for the Tzadik label.
Incarnation is a live album by American pianist Cecil Taylor. It was recorded on November 4, 1999 during the "Total Music Meeting" at the "Podewil" in Berlin, and was released in 2004 by FMP. On the album, Taylor is joined by guitarist Franky Douglas, cellist Tristan Honsinger, and drummer Andrew Cyrille.
Percussion Ensemble is an album by American percussionist Milford Graves, recorded in July 1965 and released in 1966 by the ESP-Disk label. On the album, Graves is joined by fellow percussionist Sonny Morgan. The two had previously recorded together on the Montego Joe albums Arriba! and Wild & Warm. Morgan would go on to play and record regularly with Leon Thomas and others, but died in 1976.
Pieces of Time is an album by jazz drummers Kenny Clarke, Andrew Cyrille, Milford Graves, and Famoudou Don Moye. It was recorded in September 1983, and was released by the Soul Note label in 1984. The album, the catalyst for which was Cyrille, presents compositions by all four musicians, along with four two-minute "personal statements." Liner notes were provided by Max Roach, who wrote: "This idea of four percussionists, using sounds as their premise in creating a work as profound as Pieces of Time, is pure artistic design."
Grand Unification is an album by American percussionist Milford Graves, recorded in October 1997 and released in 1998 by Tzadik Records.
At the Unity Theatre is a live album by saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lytton. It was recorded in January 1975 at the Unity Theatre in London, and was released later that year by Incus Records. The album was reissued on CD, with three extra tracks, by Psi Records in 2003.
In Concert: From There to Hear is a live solo percussion album by Jerome Cooper. It was recorded during 1995–1998 at concerts presented at Roulette and The Knitting Factory in New York City, and was released by Mutable Music in 2001.
The Bishop's Move is a live album that combines two trios, one led by saxophonist Evan Parker, and the other led by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. It was recorded on May 19, 2003, at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec, Canada, and was released in 2004 by Les Disques Victo. Parker is accompanied by pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and drummer Paul Lytton, while Brötzmann is joined by bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake.
