Contrast Sam Rivers

• 1Circles04:18
• 2Zip04:45
• 3Solace06:57
• 4Verve07:12
• 5Dazzle09:16
• 6Images03:55
• 7Lines07:12
• Total Runtime43:35

Info for Contrast

Dave Holland always described Sam Rivers’ groups as his finishing school. It was Sam who instructed him to play “all the music” – inside, outside, atonal, swing, blues, and all the hues of the jazz and chamber music traditions. By the time of Contrasts, Rivers and Holland had been working together consistently for seven years (with Dave’s Conference of the Birds at the start of the story), a powerhouse combination of multi-reeds and double bass. Of the drummers who passed through the line-up, Thurman Barker was one of the most creative, rippling across drum kit and marimba. Young trombone innovator George Lewis had already worked with Holland and Barker in Anthony Braxton groups. For Contrasts everyone was fired up and ready to play.

It’s a funny thing about getting lost: the more one tries to do it consciously, the more one discovers new pieces to fit into the jigsaw puzzle of familiar things. Jazz legend Sam Rivers, who made his only other ECM appearance on the classic Conference of the Birds, proved this sonically when he brought his patented “inside-out” technique to bear alongside Dave Holland, George Lewis, and Thurman Barker upon this free jazz date from 1979. Now in his 88th year, Rivers’s legacy continues to yield new nuggets of audio wisdom through such albums as Contrasts.

The album opens in “Circles” with some chewy improv. Thick horns and brittle drumming provide plenty of interplay to keep our wits on a tight leash. Lewis seems the most at home here, providing a bubbling cauldron of likeminded flights. It is the first in a smattering of freer tracks, the others being the slowly building “Solace” and perhaps the most abstract aside, “Images.” This leaves us with a hefty set of rhythm-driven powerhouses. “Zip” tightens the purse strings with an ever-moving tenor for some wholesome, head-nodding goodness. This joint also serves up a heaping drum solo on the side. Our frontman opts for flute in the swinging “Verve” with a renewed spring in his step. Convincing monologues from Holland and Lewis ease into a slow and timid end. “Lines” reprises that contagious soprano sax against an omniscient rhythm section before bowing out for some quality bass time. “Dazzle” brings exactly that, freeing our minds with a Braxton-esque tenor and tap-dancing bass work. Lewis is more than up to the task, scurrying in with Rivers in their joint commitment to going deeper.

As one of ECM’s bolder sessions, Contrasts deserves shelf space right next to George Adams’s Sound Suggestions. It is nothing if not about contrasts: the cohesive and the fractured, uprightness and vertigo. Colorful, straightforward, stirring.

„Tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers (also heard on soprano and flute) teams up in a quartet with trombonist George Lewis, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Thurman Barker (doubling on marimba) for a date that certainly defies the stereotype of a typical ECM session. The seven Rivers originals, although sometimes having colorful melodies, are quite complex. However, the intriguing and very alert interplay between the brilliant musicians makes the music seem fairly logical and worth exploring by adventurous listeners.

An astonishin' group and record for ECM today unbelievably oop. In my opinion one of the best ECM at all. I really can't say or imagine why Manfred Eicher did't reissued this album. To my knowledge there are only two editions: their first in 1980 followed by another in 1981. Sam Rivers in top form with some of the best musicians in those days, and still today. The half of this group (George Lewis and Dave Holland) is the same of the Braxton Dortmund 1976 concert. The music is in the same joyous vein and yet very different. I think this is a neglected gem.

'Last but not least' This is not a rip by me, since I haven't got this album in my personal collection. So my greatest thanks go to dear friend, cattalan, who did the work. I even didn't know this album before. What a great gift You made me 'catta': THANKS.“ (Scott Yanow)

Sam Rivers, soprano and tenor saxophone, flute
George Lewis, trombone
Dave Holland, double bass
Thurman Parker, drums, marimba

Recorded December 1979 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineered by Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Digitally remastered by ECM.

Sam Rivers
is one of the greatest jazz legends of our time, performing for over 70 years. In the 1970’s he was the first artist to open a jazz cultural arts center in Greenwich New York, which was used as a venue to help artist exhibit their talents and gain recognition. Sam has maintained his various bands; The Sam Rivers Trio, The Sam Rivers Quartet and The Rivbea Orchestra.

Over the years Sam Rivers has composed a myriad of scribbles, musical phrases, technically difficult, twists, turns and whatever ideas he would conceive similar to an exercise in free association. Thematic material, which he estimates; will take at least a decade to expand into compositions ranging from 5 to 50 minutes. Through habit and as a mental exercise, he composed at least a page a day through a speed process of 15 minutes to a half an hour.

Sam Rivers’ entire life has entailed being an improviser, principle soloist and solo performer. His musical thoughts are transferred to paper in the same way that he improvises. He writes down improvisations as if he is performing a spontaneous creative composition.

Sam spent most of his time copying each part as he does in composing; trying to make each part a solo. He stated that each part should be able to perform alone with the bass and drums.

This music is part of his repertoire of over 400 original compositions for a Jazz Orchestra. Two of the compositions have been commissioned by, and all are dedicated to, the Lincoln Center for the Arts.

"I have the distinct honor of being the only musician in the history of jazz to have performed and/or recorded with the most important musicians in blues, swing, bebop and the avant garde."

He has been playing solo or with various artist in bands with a multitude of some of the greatest musicians of this century. Such musicians as:

Dizzy Gillespie, Cecil Taylor, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Miles Davis, Billy Holliday, Winton & Branford Marsalas , BB King, Jimmy Hendrix, Jimmy Witherspoon, T-Bone Walker, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Dave Holland, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Kevin Eubanks, Ron Carter, Arthur Blythe, Nathan Davis, Chico Freeman, Santi Debriano, Norman Connors, Joe Daley, Thurman Barker, Hal Galper, WarrenSmith, Archie Shepp, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Roy Hargrove, Thurman Barker, Chaka Kahn as well as 100's of others.

The 2 time Grammy Award Nominee felt truly fortunate to be able to present to you some of the music he has spent his life creating. Source: www.rivbea.com.

Booklet for Contrast