1974 · Album
Dialogue of the Drums
Recorded January 1974 · Institute of Percussive Studies · Format: Live
Two Drummers in Furious Conversation
Two masters of percussion engage in loose precision, then explode into frenzies of clattering assault.
This is a conversation between two people who speak the same language fluently and disagree about almost everything. Andrew Cyrille and Milford Graves were both rooted in African drum traditions and both committed to free improvisation, but they arrived at those commitments from different angles and with different instincts. What makes Dialogue of the Drums (1974) work is that neither one dominates—they interrupt, respond, build on each other's ideas, then tear them apart and start over.
The arsenal they brought was enormous: beyond trap sets, they used talking drums, frame drums, hand drums, wood blocks, and their own bodies as percussion. Cyrille's foot stomps and body slaps were a signature move, while Graves added vocalizations and call-and-response patterns that pushed the music closer to ritual than to jazz club etiquette. The result is densely rhythmic and genuinely noisy in the best sense—not chaotic, but so thick with sound that isolating individual contributions becomes pointless. You stop trying to track who is playing what and just listen to the shape of the conversation as it rises and falls.
BrainAllMusic reviewer Brian Olewnick heard two improvisers of the highest order, and the energy here justifies that assessment. This is not a polite session. It's two masters testing each other's limits across ninety minutes, which means it will exhaust some listeners and fascinate others. If you want to understand what free percussion could be in the early 1970s, this album is essential.
Who's playing
Andrew Cyrillegong
Milford Gravesbongos
Where next?
More by Milford Graves
Pieces of Time 1984
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Sacred Ceremonies 2021
Percussion Ensemble 1965
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In Concert at Yale University 1966
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
