Harrison Milloff

= Division III =

This article is part of a Climax Div III Issue. By Henry Parr, Managing Editor.

Harry Milloff’s Division III, How Many Times: The Passage of Gospel Blues, was a performance and an essay that tries to capture the influence that Gospel Blues has had on Milloff as a musician and student of music. The essay is primarily focused on one of the most prominent figures in Gospel music, Thomas A. Dorsey. Dorsey who is often considered the “father of Gospel music” has affected a wide variety and number of musicians, many of who are Milloff’s musical influences.

The final performance was exemplary of how gospel music had influenced his growth as a musician. Milloff said, that the perfor- mance was made up of “my own original compositions that took aspects of gospel music into how I was writing it, but also a lot of jazz, a lot of funk. It was just a culmination of a lot of musical influences I have had.” Playing with “a wide selection of musicians both from on campus and off,” Milloff also collaborated with Owen Watson and Juliana Frick, co-members of his group The Faculty, and played one song with his father.

While an administrative mishap pushed Milloff to change his Div III from making a marketing strategy and business plan for The Faculty to a music performance, Milloff appeared to be happy with his final product. Music has been the common thread in his studies, and what he has spent “the majority of [his] time on here at Hampshire.” Of the experiences he’s had at Hampshire, playing with The Faculty has been one of the most notable. “I’ve played with so many different bands, and never experienced anything like what I do with The Faculty. And that’s only because of the people in the band being on the same page and just looking to have fun and being really creative and dedicated.”

Milloff remarked that his time at Hampshire was worth it because of the experience he had “ learning about [himself] and what [he’s] capable of and what [he] likes to do.”