Singer/musician William DuVall likes to keep himself busy. You would think being the frontman for Alice In Chains would keep him occupied but instead, DuVall has a good number of projects going on all at once. He hit Chile for a couple festival gigs with AIC, he is still working post-production on a film dealing with the punk rock/hardcore scene in Atlanta during the 80’s while also producing some bands on the side, and he somehow found the time to direct another documentary on the life of jazz drummer Milford Graves. I was able to catch up with DuVall to find out more about his latest film project entitled “Ancient to Future: The Wisdom of Milford Graves.”
David Carr: What has compelled you to make a documentary on the life of Milford Graves?
William DuVall: In my view, Milford is one of the true geniuses living on the planet today. He’s not only a master musician but also a master educator, holistic healer, martial artist, and scientist who’s doing some of the most cutting edge research in cardiology being done anywhere in the world. I don’t know of anyone else who is so unique and innovative across so many fields of endeavor. It’s even more remarkable when one considers where Milford started. We’re talking about someone who was born into a completely segregated America 70 years ago to a working class Black family in inner city New York. All the chips were stacked against him. Yet look at the ground he’s covered. We often throw around terms like “American original,” “self-made man,” or “Renaissance Man.” Milford Graves exemplifies all of those things at the highest level. He exists in the same tradition as Imhotep, the master architect, physician, and musician of ancient Egypt (KMT). Like Imhotep, Milford has much to teach us about human potential and how to live one’s life. Unlike Imhotep, Milford is alive RIGHT NOW. In this beleaguered and uncertain world of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and Oprah-style self-help media, Milford’s name should be a household word. He’s the real deal – a bona fide self-made survivor with a truly holistic approach to life and a seemingly limitless fountain of real world practical knowledge to impart. Yet almost nobody knows he exists. I want to help change that.
David Carr: What are some new things you learned about Graves while making the film?
William DuVall: Milford’s energy and determination are like nothing I’ve ever seen. He’s vibrating on a higher frequency. Being in his presence makes you do the same. The man does nothing halfway. Milford digs to the very bottom of whatever idea or task he takes on. Just look at the way he plays the drums, for example. He uses his forearms, his elbows. He throws his entire body into his playing. Each arm and each leg can be playing in completely different time signatures but still sound cohesive. Milford plays the WHOLE drum kit as well, wringing every possible tonal nuance out of each drum and cymbal. He’ll be hitting the snare drum with the drumstick in his left hand while his left elbow is simultaneously pushing on the snare drum head to manipulate its pitch. I’ve never seen anyone behind a trap drum set striking and pitch manipulating a drum with a single limb while the other three limbs are also wreaking havoc across the kit at the same time. Milford sounds like an entire African village when he plays. He plays the rhythms between the rhythms. But what’s even more staggering is that he applies that same level of commitment to every other aspect of his life: his cardiac research, martial arts, herbal medicine, mathematics, yoga, acupuncture, his diet, even the way he teaches his classes at Bennington College (where he was recently awarded Emeritus status after a distinguished 40 year professorship there). The only thing Milford seems incapable of is half-stepping.
David Carr: In the film we see Graves moving from jazz musician to scientist and healer. How does one use music and science to heal?
William DuVall: For starters, Milford sees the human body itself as a musical instrument. As anyone with a basic understanding of physiology knows, every atom in every one of our cells is vibrating. And science now recognizes that those vibrations actually correspond to musical pitches. This explains, in part, why singing or playing an instrument or even simply listening to music can have dramatic therapeutic or destructive effects on our minds and bodies. Milford is very well acquainted with this and he applies that awareness along with his vast study of music, biology, computer science, and ancient ritual medicine to his study of the human heart. Basically, he records a person’s heartbeat, gathering more information than most cardiologists are able or care to (using equipment he either customized or created himself) and he turns all of that information into orchestral music (using computer source code which he wrote himself). The pitches and notes in the music are derived directly from the raw data of one’s own heart sound – not just the sonic frequencies but also the electrical impulses of the heart muscle’s movement. That alone is intriguing. But what’s really mind-blowing is, when Milford records someone suffering from an arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat caused by various kinds of heart ailments), he can correct the arrhythmia while he’s transforming the patient’s raw data into music. Then he feeds that “corrected” music back into the patient’s body either through electrodes attached to specific points on the head or via repeated listening through speakers or headphones. With this method, he seems to have actually cured certain patients’ arrhythmias. Their hearts realigned themselves through listening to their own “heart music.” Mind you, this procedure is in its infancy. It’s a long way from clinical trials (which is part of the reason for making this film – to facilitate further research). But, to my knowledge, this is an entirely unique treatment. Nobody else is doing it. Certain more forward-thinking established physicians, one of whom I interview in the film, are beginning to take notice. They acknowledge not only the uniqueness of the procedure but also the potentially game-changing implications of the work. Milford has created both the method and mode of execution. And he’s doing it all of this from his basement in Queens, NY. It’s nothing short of astounding.
David Carr: Have you always been a fan of free form jazz? How and when did you get into it?
William DuVall: I started reading about people like Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, and James “Blood” Ulmer when I got a subscription to Musician Magazine (a sadly long since defunct publication) for Christmas 1978 when I was 11 years old. For my twelfth birthday, I asked for and received Blood Ulmer’s album “Tales Of Captain Black.” By that time, I had already been playing guitar for about four years and was already a huge fan of Hendrix and Funkadelic. Blood Ulmer seemed like he was taking it to the next level. From there I started seeking out records by Ornette, Ayler, Coltrane, etc. and I was forever changed. But what really did me in was seeing the Art Ensemble of Chicago live at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC when I was 13. That was when I truly understood the eternal power of improvised music. I was right in front of the band. In fact, I was actually sitting on the stage. Those guys were channeling something that was thousands of years old but will still be modern thousands of years from now. It gave me the same feeling I got listening to Hendrix’s “Machine Gun,” only the magic was happening in real time less than two feet away from me. I was literally engulfed by the experience. I remember Lester Bowie dedicating a trumpet solo to me, saying beforehand directly into the mic, “This is for the little brother right here.” The Art Ensemble’s motto, which they used to exclaim at the end of every concert, was, “Great Black Music, Ancient To The Future!” That says it all. And all these years later, it provides me with the title of my film about Milford Graves. Because that’s what Milford and so many of the great geniuses from the 1960s free jazz revolution were doing. Most of those musicians lived lives of tremendous commitment and sacrifice. Many of them are dead. Most remain unheralded. This film is for all of them.
David Carr: Is there synergy between free form jazz and punk rock?
William DuVall: Definitely. In fact, I remember as a kid reading a piece in Musician Magazine by Lester Bangs called “Free Jazz and Punk Rock.” This was around 1981. Bangs describes guest DJ-ing on a radio show and playing the Stooges “Funhouse” and Coltrane’s “Ascension” simultaneously over the air on two different turntables. Several listeners called in wanting to know who the “great new band” was. They didn’t know it was two different records by two different artists from different genres being played together. That article really resonated with me because ’81 was right when I was right in the thick of connecting the dots between the Stooges, Ayler, Coltrane, the MC5, The Velvet Underground, Sun Ra, Black Flag etc. They ALL sounded exactly like I felt back then. They still do. The spirit, the energy, the quest to break with the status quo are very much the same. Also, like punk rockers, free jazz musicians have always been very DIY when it comes to releasing their records and putting on shows. They’ve had to be out of necessity. Established record labels, venues, and media outlets are often totally uninterested in (or extremely threatened by) what they’re doing.
David Carr: How did you get into film making? What compels to you create films about musical genres and performers?
William DuVall: I got into filmmaking when I was approached in 2005 to make a documentary about my early punk band Neon Christ. While flattered personally, I felt that a film on Neon Christ alone was a bit narrow in scope. I agreed to get involved on the condition that the film be expanded to a more inclusive (though by no means comprehensive) portrait of the Atlanta hardcore scene, examining both the early 1980s origins and the current basement/DIY scene that the new kids are creating. We’ve been working on that film for several years now (under the working title “All Alone Together”) and the work continues. Edgar Johnson is the director. I’m the executive producer. There are also five other people, including the other three members of Neon Christ, serving in either associate producer or advisory capacities. “All Alone Together” is a film being made largely by committee. By contrast, “Ancient To Future” is, for better or worse, almost solely my own thing. The idea came about in summer 2010 when I brought an issue of Jazz Inside magazine with me on a flight to Germany to start a European tour with AIC. The magazine had an interview with Milford in it. I’d been a fan of his since I was about 17 but hadn’t thought about him in years. That Jazz Inside interview convinced me that I had to get in touch with him. Once I actually met him and shot footage in his home, I knew I had a film. By default, I became both the producer and director. No-one else I knew was going to do it. And, at this point, who else is Milford going to trust? We’ve established a rapport and a made covenant of sorts which I take very seriously. Since taking this project on, at times I’ve found the learning curve to be rather steep. I’ve been doing the work of about seven people for over a year now. Occasionally it’s difficult and frustrating, but it’s also provided some of the most exhilarating moments I’ve ever experienced as an artist. Whenever I hit a wall that seems impassable, I need look no further for inspiration than the film’s very subject, Milford Graves. He’s probably the most intense, most tenacious person I’ve ever met. When it comes to taking on new challenges, that guy is the acid test. If he can accomplish all that he manages to do every day, I can certainly direct a documentary, especially if it’s about someone like him. I do feel a bit disingenuous calling myself a “filmmaker” though. Francis Coppola is a filmmaker. D.A. Pennebaker and the Maysles brothers are filmmakers. I’m just a musician who, out of necessity, is attempting to learn another skill set to tell a story I feel is important.
David Carr: Are there any other artists whose work/life you would like to put on film?
William DuVall: I would love to make the definitive film about Black Flag and SST Records but that’s probably a pipe dream. It’s such a gigantic story involving so many people, many of whom are no longer speaking to (or even about) one another. I could easily see myself turning into Captain Ahab on that ill-fated voyage. I do, however, have a 4-hour videotaped interview that I conducted with Greg Ginn in 2008. It covers things he doesn’t normally discuss in interviews. I guess, as Ringo Starr said, tomorrow never knows. Life is nothing if not unpredictable. If someone had told me two years ago that I’d now be editing and shopping a feature-length documentary film on Milford Graves, I’d have thought they were certifiable. Now here I am. Maybe it’s me who’s crazy. I suppose we’ll see.
David Carr: When can folks expect to see the film?
William DuVall: I hope to have “Ancient To Future: The Wisdom of Milford Graves” done by March of 2012. I’ve already completed a 22-minute cut. I’m now working on a 52-minute version while simultaneously shopping for licensing and distribution. The trailer can already be viewed online at http://www.youtube.com/dvlfilms1.
David Carr: What musical/film projects do you have coming up in the future?
William DuVall: I’d say between “Ancient To Future” and “All Alone Together,” I’ve got plenty to deal with for now. Then there’s also the matter of my “day job.”
David Carr: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions William.
William DuVall: Thanks for your interest, man.
Make sure you check out William DuVall’s documentary Ancient to Future: The Wisdom of Milford Graves when it hits theaters in March of 2012. Oh, and feel free to check William out at his “day job”. HA!