Jazz Musician Sam Rivers -- RIP

Sam Rivers

Sam Rivers, who helped establish an avant-garde perspective to the jazz of the 1970s and 1980s, died recently at age 88 in Florida. The New York Times' obit provides a reasonable overview of Rivers' life. However, the website maintained by Rivers' daughter, Monique Rivers Williams, offers a richer window into Rivers' musical outlook and remarkable career.

I have some recordings in which Rivers is a featured musician. I liked his work, but never went out of my way to accumulate more music than I had. He was a key figure in jazz's so-called loft movement of the late 1970s, but I never saw Rivers perform. The one time I did see jazz in a loft was in TriBeCa. At that time, TriBeCa had not yet become a playground for zillionaires. Jane, whom I knew through an Italian friend, invited me to a loft performance by the jazz pianist Don Pullen. I had admired Pullen's work for years, and was happy to attend the event. The performance was interesting, in that the event was an ensemble performance combining Pullen's wonderful music with the accompanying movements of a female dancer. The event also wasn't very crowded, which created a sense of artistic intimacy that I've rarely experienced since that evening.

Later that month, I met Jane at a Mexican coffee shop on Church Street. She would often stay there for hours, because the establishment's food and ambience reminded Jane of her hometown, San Diego. The coffee shop also had heat, which was more than what Jane got in her tiny, dilapidated Little Italy apartment. It also served excellent huevos rancheros, a dish I thoroughly enjoy when it's done well.

Since that time, TriBeCa and the New York arts world have evolved into something I don't think Don Pullen or Sam Rivers might have recognized as related to their aspirations. It's notable that, in Rivers' later years, he moved to the Orlando area, got musicians together, and continued exploring the musical frontiers of jazz. It's a spirit that seems largely diminished in New York today, replaced by a general sense of uptightness about exploration without compensation. Sam Rivers fought the good fight, a kindred spirit to the jazz musicians who played because there was "something inside of them" that just had to come out.