Samuel Carthorne Rivers
(born September 25, 1923, in El Reno, Oklahoma) [1] is an American jazz musician and composer. He performs on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica and piano.
Active in jazz since the early '50s, Rivers earned wider attention during the mid-'60s spread of free jazz. With a thorough command of music theory, orchestration and composition, Rivers has been an influential and prominent artist in jazz music. |
SAM RIVERS TICKETS
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Early life
Rivers's father was a
gospel musician who had sung with the
Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Silverstone Quartet, exposing Rivers to music from an early age. Rivers moved to
Boston, Massachusetts in 1947, where he studied at the
Boston Conservatory with
Alan Hovhaness.
He performed with
Quincy Jones,
Herb Pomeroy,
Tadd Dameron and others.
Blue Note era
In 1959 Rivers began performing with 13-year-old
drummer Tony Williams, who later went on to have an impressive career. Rivers did a brief stint with
Miles Davis's quintet in 1964, 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, and he was soon replaced by
Wayne Shorter. Rivers was signed by
Blue Note Records, for whom he recorded four albums as leader and made several sideman appearances. Among noted sidemen on his own Blue Note Records were
Jaki Byard who appears on
Fuchsia Swing Song
,
Herbie Hancock and
Freddie Hubbard. He appeared on Blue Note recordings of Tony Williams,
Andrew Hill and
Larry Young.
Rivers's music is rooted in
bebop, but he is an adventurous player, adept at
free jazz. The first of his Blue Note albums,
Fuchsia Swing Song
, 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
Fuchsia Swing Song
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 four-bar elements has a distinct emotional identity.
Loft era
During the 1970s, Rivers and his wife, Bea, ran a noted jazz performance loft called
Studio Rivbea in
New York City's
NoHo district. He continued to record for a variety of labels, including several albums for Impulse! (
Streams
, recorded live at Montreux,
Hues
- both records contain different trio performances later collated on CD as
Trio Live
- the quartet album
Sizzle
and his first big-band disc,
Crystals
); perhaps his best-known work from this period, though, is his appearance on
Dave Holland's
Conference of the Birds
, in the company of
Anthony Braxton and
Barry Altschul.
Recently
Rivers currently lives near
Orlando, Florida. He performs regularly with his Orchestra and Trio (with Doug Matthews and Rion Smith). In 1998 he recorded two big-band albums for RCA Victor with the RivBea All-Star Orchestra,
Culmination
and
Inspiration
(the title-track is an elaborate reworking of
Dizzy Gillespie's "Tanga": Rivers was in Gillespie's band near the end of the trumpeter's life). Other recent albums of note include
Portrait
, a solo recording for FMP, and
Vista
, a trio with drummers Adam Rudolph and Harris Eisenstadt for Meta.
In 2006, he released
Aurora
, a third CD featuring compositions for his Rivbea Orchestra and the first CD featuring members of his working orchestra in Orlando.
Sam Rivers and the RivBea Orchestra are currently recording several new compositions at Sonic Cauldron Studios in Winter Springs, FL.
Discography
As leader
- Fuchsia Swing Song
, Blue Note Records 1964.
- Contours
, Blue Note Records 1965.
- A New Conception
, Blue Note Records 1966.
- Dimensions And Extensions
, Blue Note Records 1967.
- Crystals
, a large ensemble work, Impulse! Records, 1974.
- Streams
(live at the Montreux Jazz Festival), Impulse! Records, 1973
- Involution
(the above 1967 recording plus a February 1967 session as sideman with the Andrew Hill Quartet), Blue Note Records, 1975.
- Sam Rivers/Dave Holland Vol. 1,
Improvising Artists, 1976.
- Sam Rivers/Dave Holland Vol. 2,
Improvising Artists, 1976.
- Sizzle
, ABC Records, 1976.
- Waves
, Tomato, 1978.
- Contrasts
, ECM 1162, 1980.
- Crosscurrent,
Blue Marge 1005, 1981.
- Inspiration
, RCA Victor, 1999.
As sideman
- Life Time,
with Tony Williams, Blue Note Records, 1964.
- Miles in Tokyo
--Miles Davis, Columbia, 1964.
- Into Somethin'
, with Larry Young, Blue Note Records, 1964.
- Spring,
with Tony Williams, Blue Note Records, 1965.
- Dialogue
with Bobby Hutcherson, Blue Note Records, 1965.
- Change,
with Andrew Hill, Blue Note Records, 1966
- The Great Concert,
with Cecil Taylor, Prestige, 1969.
- Conference of the Birds
, with the Dave Holland Quartet, ECM Records, 1973.
- In the Name of...
, with Music Revelation Ensemble, DIW, 1993.
- Tangens
,with Alexander von Schlippenbach,FMP ,1998
- Black Stars
, with Jason Moran, Blue Note Records, 2001.
- Diaspora Blues
-- Steven Bernstein with Sam Rivers Trio, Tzadik, 2002.
- Torque
— Brian Groder with Sam Rivers Trio, 2007
References
- Allmusic Biography