Sam Rivers at 100

Sam Rivers who recorded with Miles Davis and Cecil Taylor was a late bloomer and master of many musical forms.

Jazz like any form of music has its child prodigies. Among the most famous ones is drummer Tony Williams who joined the Miles Davis Quintet in 1963 as a teenager, adding to Davis’ reputation as a talent scout. Well, the scouting had already been made several years before that by saxophonist Sam Rivers in Boston where Williams grew up. Rivers began performing with the 13-year-old Williams in 1959.

The musical investment in Williams paid back when Rivers for a brief period of time in 1964 was hired as the saxophonist in the Miles Davis Quintet. Rivers tenure with the band is documented on Miles in Tokyo. Rivers sounds much rawer and grittier than Davis’ other saxophonists at the time. His solos on standards songs like “If I Were a Bell” and “My Funny Valentine” sounds urgent and impatient with the form and are set in stark contrast to the lyrical elegance of Davis and Hancock, or for that matter to saxophonists George Coleman and Wayne Shorter who preceded and replaced Rivers, respectively.

Typically for the career of Rivers the recording he did with Davis was not released until 1969, and in Japan only. By then he had already begun recording for Blue Note, both as a leader, beginning with Fuchsia Swing Song (1965), and as a sideman, as on Tony Williams’ Spring (1966). The music on these albums reflects some of his soloing with Miles Davis. Rivers obviously knows musical forms well both as a composer and improviser. Listen for instance to his ballad “Beatrice,” dedicated to his wife, which has become a jazz standard. But sometimes he leaves the form and plays outside or free, as it is called.

The hard bop Rivers

This impatience with traditional forms manifested itself in the music of several leading musicians at the time like Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Eric Dolphy. The sometimes raw blues feeling in Rivers’ music could also be heard among other saxophonists like Archie Shepp, and Albert Ayler.

Part of Rivers showing up with such an advanced musical concept was that he was 40 years of age when he joined Miles Davis and started to record for Blue Note. So, he was already formed as a musician. The formation had been made through him playing in blues and big bands, and through studies at the Boston Conservatory.

The earliest recording there seem to exist of Rivers is a 1961 octet date with pianist Tadd Dameron. The track “The Elder Speaks” is written by Rivers. It is solid, funky hard bop with one of the best rhythm sections at the time: bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer “Philly” Joe Jones. Rivers own solo is big toned and muscular. He sounds a bit like Dexter Gordon who was stylistically important for the bebop saxophonists. The music was not released until 1999 as The Lost Sessions on Blue Note.

The free Rivers

Rivers recorded four albums as a leader for Blue Note between 1965 and 1967 showcasing him as a composer, tenor and soprano saxophonist, and flautist. The last one was not issued until 1975. So, Rivers became a sideman once more, playing with pianist Cecil Taylor who like Rivers was interested in other forms of music than the traditional ones. The music Rivers played with Taylor in a quartet with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons and drummer Andrew Cyrille was dense, complex, and far away from the usual steady pulse, and harmonic centers in traditional jazz. Rivers sounds just at home. One of their 1969 concerts in Europe was recorded and released as Nuits de la Fondation Maeght (1971) in France. It was later released in the USA as The Great Concert of Cecil Taylor (1977). As you can see a lot of Rivers’ recorded work took a long time to reach audiences.

Next Rivers signed with Impulse Records who at the time also had artists like Keith Jarrett and Gato Barbieri. Rivers’ album Streams (1973) recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival with bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Norman Connors features a 48-minute continuous performance where Rivers plays his three horns and the piano in free sections which shifts out and in of harmony and time.

For Impulse Rivers also recorded the ambitious big band album Crystals (1974) where the form by necessity to organize the music is more conventional. Rivers also recorded on bassist Dave Holland’s album Conference of the Birds (1973) and he and Holland became close, guest appearing on each other’s recordings and releasing collaborative albums.

The alternative Rivers

At the time Rivers was an important figure on the New York loft scene where musicians presented their own exploratory music away from the commercial venues such as night clubs and concert halls.

Rivers main body of work is from 1970s and onwards to the mid-2000s. He continued to work in various musical situations playing free exploratory music with small ensembles to playing with big bands. Among the musicians he worked with was both bebop veteran trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and much younger M-Base saxophonist Steve Coleman.

Rivers died of pneumonia in 2011, at the age of 88. Although he took a musical path less travelled he became an important figure in the music through the consistency and endurance of his example.