Samuel Carthorne Rivers aka Sam Rivers(R.I.P.)

Samuel Carthorne Rivers (September 25, 1923 to December 26, 2011),was an American jazz musician and composer. He performed on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica and piano.
Rivers was born in Enid, Oklahoma. Active in jazz since the early 1950s, he earned wider attention during the mid-1960s spread of free jazz. With a thorough command of music theory, orchestration and composition, Rivers has been an influential and prominent artist in jazz music.

Rivers most recently lived near Orlando, Florida. He was performing regularly with his Orchestra and Trio (with Doug Matthews and Rion Smith). In 1998 he recorded two big-band albums for RCA Victor with the RivBea All-Star Orchestra, Culmination and Inspiration (the title-track is an elaborate reworking of Dizzy Gillespie's "Tanga": Rivers was in Gillespie's band near the end of the trumpeter's life). Other recent albums of note include Portrait, a solo recording for FMP, and Vista, a trio with drummers Adam Rudolph and Harris Eisenstadt for Meta.

In 2006, he released Aurora, a third CD featuring compositions for his Rivbea Orchestra and the first CD featuring members of his working orchestra in Orlando.

Sam Rivers and the RivBea Orchestra were recording several new compositions at Sonic Cauldron Studios in Winter Springs, FL.

Samuel Carthorne Rivers

www.rivbea.com