Jazz Articles about Sam Rivers

About Sam Rivers

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts

Read "Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
May 12, 2026

Another insanely good Record Store Day release from Elemental Music, Fragments, The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts, is available as a limited-edition, 180-gram, 3-LP gatefold set or as your standard 2-CD version, but truth be told and told plainly, any version will serve one well. Talk about rumble in the jungle. Fragments, The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts pushes at you like a gang fight on the 49-minute “Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington Evening Set Version." ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts

Read "Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
May 2, 2026

Hosting a recording by Cecil Taylor represents a new departure for producer Zev Feldman. He is candid about the challenge: “Words fail me to describe the great genius of Cecil Taylor and I could never do him justice, but luckily we have Phil Freeman's erudite words." Freeman contributes a substantial essay to the release. Even after fifty years, Taylor's music remains dense, unrelenting, forceful, and challenging. Time has not diminished its impact. The glorious vivacity is undimmed.

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts

Read "Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts" reviewed by Joshua Weiner

by Joshua Weiner
April 26, 2026

"On one level you can look at him as one of the grandfathers of the free jazz tradition," says pianist Matthew Shipp of Cecil Taylor in the generous booklet included with Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts, a three-LP set released by Elemental Music for Record Store Day 2026 (CD and digital releases will also follow). “But on the other hand...(h)e was very insistent that he came out of a certain tradition, and he talked about Ellington, Monk, and ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor Unit: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts

Read "Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 18, 2026

Cecil Taylor, a pioneer of free jazz, pared down his Cecil Taylor Unit ensemble for a trip through Europe to partake in a 15-date tour in late 1969, in support of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the Miles Davis Quintet. This foray was billed as the Newport Jazz Festival In Europe. Taylor's Unit of the day--Taylor on piano, Sam Rivers on reeds, Jimmy Lyons on alto sax and Andrew Cyrille in the drummer's chair--sounded nothing like the elegance and swing ...

Radio & Podcasts

Sam Rivers Centennial + New John Zorn Works

by David Brown
October 10, 2023

For this week's show, we celebrate the centennial of the birth of composer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers; along the way we'll here a short vocal set and some recent releases from John Zorn. Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club--Complete (Columbia) 01:50 Helen Merrill, Clifford Brown “Hush Now Don't Explain" from Hellen Merrill (Jazz Images) 02:30 Mal Waldron “Hush Now Don't Explain" from Mal 2 (Orignnal Jazz Classics) 05:13 Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra ...

Book Review

The Sam Rivers Sessionography: A Work in Progress

by Mike Chamberlain
December 18, 2022

The Sam Rivers Sessionography: A Work in Progress Rick Lopez 768 Pages ISBN: # 9 780578 948713 The Vortex2022 Twenty-five years in the making, Rick Lopez's 768-page opus The Sam Rivers Sessionography: A Work in Progress is a dizzying, stunning achievement of research and scholarship that stands as a one-of-a-kind standard for a genre that Lopez has practically invented by himself, starting with his previous William Parker sessionography (in print), and his online ...

Album Review

Sam Rivers: Caldera

by John Sharpe
November 18, 2022

Caldera constitutes an impressive final entry in the Lithuanian NoBusiness imprint's Sam Rivers Archive Project. It showcases the legendary multi-instrumentalist's longstanding trio with bassist Doug Matthews and drummer Anthony Cole, which he established two years after his relocation from New York to Florida in 1991 and which remained active until 2006. During its existence, the outfit made three albums, of which the pick is Firestorm (Rivbea, 1998). The threesome provided arguably one of the most empathetic settings ...