Sam Rivers
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Samuel Carthorne Rivers (born September 25, 1923, El Reno, Oklahoma) is a jazz musician and composer. He performs on soprano and tenor saxophones, flute, and piano. Rivers was previously thought to have been born in 1930.
Rivers's father was a gospel musician, exposing Rivers to music from an early age.
Rivers moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1947, to study at the Boston Conservatory of Music. He performed with Quincy Jones, Herb Pomeroy, Tadd Dameron and others.
In 1959, Rivers began performing with 13-year-old drummer Tony Williams, who later went on to an impressive career. Rivers later joined Miles Davis's quintet--briefly--partly at Williams's recommendation. This quintet was recorded on a single album, Miles in Tokyo. Unfortunately, Rivers playing style was too free to be compatible with Davis's music at this point. Rivers was signed by Blue Note Records, for whom he recorded four albums as leader, although one was not issued until 1975, and made several sideman appearances.
Rivers's music is rooted in bebop, but he is an adventurous player, adept at free jazz. The first of his Blue Note albums, Fuschia Swing Song (FSS), is widely regarded as a masterpiece of an approach sometimes called "inside-outside". The performer frequently obliterates the explicit harmonic framework ("going outside") but retains a hidden link so as to be able to return to it in a seamless fashion. Rivers brought the conceptual tools of bebop harmony to a new level in this process, united at all times with the ability to "tell a story" which Lester Young had laid down as a benchmark for the jazz improviser.
His powers as a composer were also in evidence in this period: the ballad "Beatrice" from FSS has become an important standard, particularly for tenor saxophonists. It is analysed in detail in The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine who notes how each of its four eight-bar elements has a distinct emotional identity.
Another memorable performance by Rivers was as a flautist on Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds.
During the 1970s, Rivers and his wife, Bea, ran a noted jazz performance loft called Studio Rivbea in New York City's NoHo district. Rivers currently lives in Orlando, Florida. He performs regularly with several bands, including his trio and his RivBea All-Star Orchestra.
Notable recordings
- Fuschia Swing Song, Blue Note Records 1964.
- Waves, Tomato, 1978.
- Culmination, RCA Victor, 2000.
Also noted: Conference Of The Birds, with the Dave Holland Quartet, ECM Records, 1973.
External links
- The Sam Rivers Sessionography and Gigography (http://www.velocity.net/~bb10k/RIVERS.disc.html)
- Jazz at Lincoln Center - Chat With Sam Rivers (http://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/jalc/chats/rivers2.html)