Sam Rivers - The Complete Blue Note Sam Rivers Sessions [1996] (3 x CDs)

 

JAZZ SUNDAY

SAM RIVERS

Sam Rivers - The Complete Blue Note Sam Rivers Sessions [1996] (3 x CDs)

Samuel Carthorne Rivers (September 25, 1923 - December 26, 2011) was an American jazz musician and composer. Though most famously a tenor saxophonist, he also performed on soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica, piano and viola.  Active in jazz since the early 1950s, he earned wider attention during the mid-1960s spread of free jazz. With a thorough command of music theory, orchestration and composition, Rivers was an influential and prominent artist in jazz music.

From the time of his first Blue Note recording in 1964 to his final session for the label in 1967, Sam Rivers made stunning progress as an avant-garde innovator. Starting with an inside/outside hard bop foundation, Rivers quickly took his music as far out as he could while maintaining a recognizable structure; his work fearlessly explored wildly dissonant harmonies and atonality, dense group interaction, cerebral rumination, and passionately intense, free-leaning solos. The Complete Blue Note Sam Rivers Sessions traces that development chronologically (and flawlessly) over the course of three discs, including the entirety of his four albums as a leader: the relatively straightforward Fuschia Swing Song [sic], the avant-bop masterpiece Contours, the radical standards album A New Conception, and the galvanizing, brilliant avant-garde classic Dimensions and Extensions (which also comprised Rivers' half of the split double-LP Involution with Andrew Hill). Five alternate takes are also added to the program, including three of "Downstairs Blues Upstairs." What amazes just as much as Rivers' imaginative originality is how consistently rewarding all three discs are. Rivers may not be quite as much a household name as some of his equally forward-thinking peers, but any jazz fan remotely interested in the avant-garde should know that this set constitutes some of the finest avant-garde jazz Blue Note ever released -- the music here should be considered a cornerstone of any self-respecting avant-garde collection. [As of early 2002, the set was very close to going out of print, a real shame since at the time it was the only form in which any of Rivers' Blue Note recordings were available.] (AllMusic review by Steve Huey)

===========================================================

   

===========================================================

Track list

CD1

01 Sam Rivers Fuschia Swing Song 6:03

02 Sam Rivers Cyclic Episode 6:57

03 Sam Rivers Luminous Monolith 6:31

04 Sam Rivers Luminous Monolith (Alt Tk) 6:37

05 Sam Rivers Ellipsis 7:41

06 Sam Rivers Downstairs Blues Upstairs (Alt Tk1) 8:09

07 Sam Rivers Downstairs Blues Upstairs (Alt Tk2) 7:46

08 Sam Rivers Downstairs Blues Upstairs (Alt Tk3) 7:48

09 Sam Rivers Downstairs Blues Upstairs 5:33

10 Sam Rivers Beatrice 6:11

CD2

01 Sam Rivers Point Of Many Returns 9:19

02 Sam Rivers Dance Of The Tripedal 10:08

03 Sam Rivers Mellifluous Cacophony 8:59

04 Sam Rivers Euterpe 11:44

05 Sam Rivers Mellifluous Cacophony (Alt Tk) 9:03

06 Sam Rivers I'll Never Smile Again 5:57

07 Sam Rivers That's All 5:38

08 Sam Rivers When I Fall In Love 5:48

CD3

01 Sam Rivers What A Difference A Day Makes 6:18

02 Sam Rivers Detour Ahead 5:09

03 Sam Rivers Temptation 7:38

04 Sam Rivers Secret Love 7:33

05 Sam Rivers Paean 5:23

06 Sam Rivers Precis 5:20

07 Sam Rivers Helix 5:31

08 Sam Rivers Effusive Melange 5:49

09 Sam Rivers Involution 7:12

10 Sam Rivers Afflatus 6:26

=============================================================

=============================================================