Sam River Trio, Halifax NS, 25 July 03

[Nate Dorward]

First time I'd seen Sam live. The gig was a late addition to the Halifax jazz festival program; he was here with the NOJO Orchestra, a Toronto band which, er, buys in big name guest stars from the States with the assistance of grant money. Wasn't terribly interested in the NOJO gig but very much wanted to see Rivers' working trio with Doug Matthews & Anthony Cole. I was immediately struck by Rivers' obvious enthusiasm for the two much younger players and his still formidable appetite for musicmaking, releasing a whoop of pleasure when a solo or piece was over: "Hoooo!". & though he undoubtedly was less of a powerhouse than in younger days (he's pushing eighty), his playing was still impressive: a fierce soprano improv opened things, then a gorgeous wind-trio (Matthews now on bass clarinet, Cole on tenor), then into a series of solo spots for Matthews (acoustic bass), Rivers (piano: free-associating from prickly-pear dissonance to fragmentary jazz standard sequences), & Cole. I'm perhaps a fussy sort, so while I was actually extremely impressed by the multi-instrumentalism of everyone onstage (Cole also had two turns at the piano, including a lovely trio performance of Rivers' "Nightfall"), I could have used more of Sam's tenor (he played it for three pieces, including a fierce trio workout and a lovely wind-trio arrangement of "Iris"). He's fine on all the instruments in his bag, but Rivers' tenor is surely one of the greatest sounds in modern jazz. Ended the concert with three flute pieces, where for the first time he seemed to be having a little trouble with the embouchure (he made up a few gaps in the music with a little scatting).

Anyway, a great night. Sometimes one goes to see a living legend & you just have to see the remaining embers of a once fine musician & imagine the rest for yourself (I'm thinking of a rather depressing Jaki Byard gig in Halifax a few years ago). This was quite the reverse: Rivers seemed vital as ever. Disappointingly he'd sold out of copies of his new disc Firestorm by the time he reached Halifax; it's self-released, he remarked, because he hated dealing with the big record companies: rather than getting royalties for the two recent big band discs (on RCA Victor I believe?) they tell him he still owes them money. A depressing story indeed.

[Nate Dorward]

Hm, can't seem to fix the typo in the title myself. I guess either the tech staff here can do it or we'll just have to grin & bear it.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Nate Dorward
Hm, can't seem to fix the typo in the title myself. I guess either the tech staff here can do it or we'll just have to grin & bear it.

I thought it was a review of Sam River Twice.

[mke]

Not the same concert, but just a few days earlier, in Belgium, with Jason Moran's trio:

[LeMo]

Where he had play lot of tenor, a bit of soprano and a inch of flute.
And no piano as the chair was already occupied (quite well by a Moran a more free player that his records let you guess).
To seen him blows his horn was a great moment indeed.
Marvellous technique (his circular breathing was a deligth) and incredible sound.
A great moment and a good memory, already, as we won't seen him to often in the future in Europe, I'm afraid.