Sam Rivers was a musical hero to me. He was an important part of my life and I wanted to share some of his history and my memories of him.
For those not familiar with him, Sam Rivers was one of the most important musicians in jazz and led one of the most remarkable careers in all of jazz history. A master saxophonist, flautist, and pianist, and composer for small ensembles and jazz orchestras, he was born in 1923, joined the Navy in the 1940s, and shortly thereafter studied at the Boston Conservatory. He was of a musical family. There is gospel in Sam's family and you hear that in his voice, his playing. He has a particular cry on the saxophone that is unlike any other and you can hear that in his singing as well. A true original, he created an entirely unique language on the saxophone, which, by the way, is completely consistent with his vocabulary on the piano. This style of improvising is also mirrored in his writing for jazz orchestra.
It was in Boston where he met Tony Williams, the 13-year old drummer who would bring him into the Miles Davis Quintet in 1964. Sam was clearly not a great fit for the quintet, however, and the stint did not last long. As Sam once told me, lamenting about having to play "shit like My Funny Valentine" in Tokyo, "I was beyond what they were doing." Sam is probably the only musician in history who played with Miles to say something like that (and it was very true).
In the mid-60s Sam led a series of incredible free-bop Blue Note recordings with Williams, Jaki Byard (another Boston cohort) and Ron Carter, starting with "Fuchsia Swing Song". "Beatrice" is the composition Sam Rivers is most known for, named after his wife of 50 years.
In the '70s, Sam and Bea led and maintained perhaps the most central loft space for creative music in New York City, Studio RivBea. Studio RivBea was located on Bond Street in lower Manhattan. Bassist William Parker described the scene to me in 2002: "In the early 70s, you had a lot of musicians coming to New York. New York has got a particular energy already, because you have so much happening. But around that time, you had musicians coming in from Chicago, St Louis, Los Angeles, and they were all coming to New York ready and wanting to play. So people were finding storefronts, lofts, and creating and producing their own concerts because the established clubs were not that receptive to hiring them. So you had all of these musicians who instead of staying at home, came out and created work for themselves, performing and recording their music. So it was very lively at that time. And there was a lot of energy in the air...it was a nice fever-pitch happening...and a lot of it was because of RivBea and places like it."
In the '80s Dizzy Gillespie hired Sam to play in his quintet. On a tour in Florida, Sam and Bea enjoyed the warm weather so much they decided to move there. And having met several musicians based in Orlando who were very interested in developing his jazz orchestra pieces, they made the move later in the decade. Sam quickly formed a trio with bassist Doug Mathews and drummer Anthony Cole.
I met Sam in 1995. I was studying engineering at University of Florida and playing in bands at night. The trombonist in one of my bands, Jerry Edwards, also played in Sam's orchestra in Orlando. It was through Jerry that I met Sam and saw the RivBea Orchestra for the first time. Seeing the RivBea Orchestra for the first time is one of those things you would never forget. I was stunned. It was out, it was funky, it was jagged, it was edgy, it was all sorts of crazy time-signatures, all coming at you from 16 musicians. As strange as it first seemed, it had all of jazz history in there too, with Sam fronting the band like some kind of rock star, dancing and screaming vocalizations out front. God, I felt like I was on another planet. I immediately started to work with Bea to help book shows for Sam in the Southeast. This went on for about four years, prior to my leaving for Boston in 2000. The first show was at a jazz festival I produced for five years in Gainesville called the Gainesville Jazz/Pop Festival. Through that festival Sam would meet many future collaborators, including trumpeter Steven Bernstein, who I met in 1996 and invited to open for Sam in 1998.
Sam had a great sense of humor and a very generous spirit. He lived to 88 years old and I'm no pot evangelist, but he and Bea smoked more weed than anyone I've ever seen. And they never got caught. They were practically on fire.
His wife Bea (of over 50 years) was a sweetheart and his biggest supporter. They were always together. If you went to a Sam Rivers concert, you'd always hear this woman yelling "WHOOOOOOA!" That was Bea. Bea would also play the bad guy and front all the business decisions so Sam could focus on his music. God, if we were all so lucky to have a Bea. I heard her yell just as loudly as she did in concert when she was on the phone with bookers. Hell, she even yelled at me once. Sam called me up to apologize later. "You know, take it to heart. But don't take it personally. She's yelling at you because you're part of the family." Some of the things he would say, you'd be scratching your head about later.
He would bring people into his band based on connections, he would try people out, give them little bits of advice. "Develop your own exercises." "Find your voice." "You gotta work on that part, you know?" I was never good enough to play in the RivBea Orchestra, but because I was helping him out with shows, Sam allowed my band Beat Science to rehearse in the Musicians Union space prior to RivBea Orchestra rehearsals. One evening trumpeter John Castleman was out and since I was the lucky dope who happened to be there, he let me sit in on a rehearsal. I'll never forget that. It was a thrill. The music was very difficult reading. It's hard to describe in writing except to say you have to hear it to believe it. Here's a video of Sam singing the parts in rehearsal prior to a show in New York shot by Alan Roth:
I learned a great work ethic from three people in my life, all who worked hard in different ways: my mother, whose work as a teacher redefined "above and beyond", my father, who rose out of near poverty as a farmer by hard work and determination, and Sam Rivers, whose musical output is staggering. Sam was writing music all the way into his 80s; he never stopped writing. For Sam, there was no such thing as retirement. "Retire? I don't even know why we have that word." Sam wrote hundreds of compositions for jazz orchestra. Every week at rehearsal he'd have two or three new pieces. In an interview with NPR a few years ago, he contemplated on the fact that he'd never have enough time to finish all of the ideas he had. "There's never enough time."
In 2000, I asked Sam to play my wedding in Gainesville. Over the years, Sam got to know both Caroline and I well. I told Sam he could play anything he wanted. He generously accepted and even asked us to make a request toward the end. I didn't need to make requests. He could make it work for people, his own version of dance music. Just seeing him adapt to a situation like that was incredible. The generosity of this man continued to astound me. Bea passed away in 2005. He was a remarkable human being and left a great legacy for all musicians.
Here are some of my favorite recordings Sam led or was a part of:
"Fuchsia Swing Song" Sam Rivers (1964) "Conference of the Birds" Dave Holland (1972) "Crystals" Sam Rivers (1974) "Sizzle" Sam Rivers (1975) "Black Africa" Sam Rivers (1976) "Contrasts" Sam Rivers (1979) "Inspiration" Sam Rivers & the RivBea Orchestra (1998) "Culmination" Sam Rivers & the RivBea Orchestra (1998)
A full discography was compiled by Rick Lopez here.
Brian, thanks so much for writing and sharing such an incredible story with such an intimate perspective. You really seem to have captured the arc of a long and jam-packed life with relatively few, albeit well-chosen words. Bravo.
I have one question you might be able to shed some light on, since you and several others have made mention of Sam not being the "right fit" for Miles' quintet. I had always been under the impression that Miles had been trying for a long time to get Wayne to join the band and that Sam was brought in to hold down the fort until wayne was available. If that was indeed the case, and Sam's comments regarding "My Funny Valentine" notwithstanding, I don't hear anything in the musical ingredients that would have made him a poor fit had the circumstances been different. What do you think? It would be fun to imagine the course the music might have taken had Sam been in Wayne's seat for those few years.
Hi Joe, good to hear from you. I think Wayne was a better fit for that band in terms of his improvising style, and the timbre of his voice in the band. Maybe that contrast could have been a good thing though. Wayne definitely blended better in that band. But that's just my personal opinion. But I do think you're right, the musical ingredients were there to be successful. Certainly Sam and Miles were on the same level of musicianship, I don't think anyone would argue with that point. So Sam certainly wasn't a poor fit in that regard. It would have been very interesting to see how the music of Miles's second quintet would have evolved with Sam in the band.
Considering this question, you also have to think about the fact that Wayne's writing was such an important part of the second quintet. So can you imagine Sam writing for Miles's group? It would have been very, very different. Sam told me he did write a piece for Dizzy's quintet in the '80s, I think he later entitled "Inspiration" and it appears on his album of the same name released in '98 with the Rivbea Orchestra.
Absolutely, Wayne'DDs writing and language in general were, and continue to be, touchstones of 20th century music and beyond. It's just fun to ponder the what ifs.
If Miles had kept him, I wonder if Sam would have changed his writing style to adapt to the players in the quintet. Or would he have written similar pieces to what he wrote in the 60s on the Blue Note records? They were all head-solo-head arrangements...funny because later Miles would state "that shit is so old, it's boring." That's one thing I loved about Miles, he never looked back. Sam never did either.
Brian, thanks so much for writing and sharing such an incredible story with such an intimate perspective. You really seem to have captured the arc of a long and jam-packed life with relatively few, albeit well-chosen words. Bravo.
I have one question you might be able to shed some light on, since you and several others have made mention of Sam not being the "right fit" for Miles' quintet. I had always been under the impression that Miles had been trying for a long time to get Wayne to join the band and that Sam was brought in to hold down the fort until wayne was available. If that was indeed the case, and Sam's comments regarding "My Funny Valentine" notwithstanding, I don't hear anything in the musical ingredients that would have made him a poor fit had the circumstances been different. What do you think? It would be fun to imagine the course the music might have taken had Sam been in Wayne's seat for those few years.
Hi Joe, good to hear from you. I think Wayne was a better fit for that band in terms of his improvising style, and the timbre of his voice in the band. Maybe that contrast could have been a good thing though. Wayne definitely blended better in that band. But that's just my personal opinion. But I do think you're right, the musical ingredients were there to be successful. Certainly Sam and Miles were on the same level of musicianship, I don't think anyone would argue with that point. So Sam certainly wasn't a poor fit in that regard. It would have been very interesting to see how the music of Miles's second quintet would have evolved with Sam in the band.
Considering this question, you also have to think about the fact that Wayne's writing was such an important part of the second quintet. So can you imagine Sam writing for Miles's group? It would have been very, very different. Sam told me he did write a piece for Dizzy's quintet in the '80s, I think he later entitled "Inspiration" and it appears on his album of the same name released in '98 with the Rivbea Orchestra.
Absolutely, Wayne'DDs writing and language in general were, and continue to be, touchstones of 20th century music and beyond. It's just fun to ponder the what ifs.
If Miles had kept him, I wonder if Sam would have changed his writing style to adapt to the players in the quintet. Or would he have written similar pieces to what he wrote in the 60s on the Blue Note records? They were all head-solo-head arrangements...funny because later Miles would state "that shit is so old, it's boring." That's one thing I loved about Miles, he never looked back. Sam never did either.
that quote of Miles' is maybe one of the most intimidating things about having a commitment to this music