In Memoriam : Sam Rivers, jazz musician, dies at 88

Sam Rivers, an internationally-known jazz musician who played with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, has died.

He was 88.

Monique Rivers Williams confirmed her father passed Monday night from pneumonia.

About Sam Rivers

The Oklahoma native was a saxophonist, flutist and composer.

Rivers started his music career in Boston, where he performed with Herb Pomeroy’s big band, an ensemble that included Quincy Jones.

In 1964, he moved to New York and was hired by Davis. His career took off as he played with an eclectic group of musicians that included Dizzie Gillespie, T-Bone Walker, and John Lee Hooker.

July, 1976. Photo Credit: Tom Marcello Webster, New York, USA

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In the early 1990s, Rivers moved to Orlando and regularly played with a group of jazz musicians whose day jobs were at Walt Disney World.

Plans are being made for a public memorial concert.

From RivBea:
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.