In the sixties, they explained evolution to us with that March of Progress illustration, a lockstep development from the proto-human Dryopithecus to modern man.  That same approach was also used to explain jazz evolution: New Orleans to Chicago to New York, hot jazz to swing to bebop to cool... Contemporary evolutionary biologists will tell you that that sixties view is far too linear and simplistic.  Should the same be said about the received history of the music?  

 

Let's consider saxophonist Sam Rivers.  He played in the bands of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, curated the most prominent jazz loft in the seventies, and led bleeding edge improvisatory small bands.  But he also composed at least a page a day of large-ensemble music, over 400 discrete compositions.  This is an astonishing volume of work, perhaps even unprecedented.  So where do you put Sam Rivers in your Jazz March of Progress?  

 

This large ensemble work by Sam Rivers is the topic of this Monday's (9/4) edition of Mitch Goldman's Deep Focus.  The guest will be trombonist Craig Harris who played in Rivers's Orchestra and is organizing a tribute performance for Sam Rivers' centennial on September 22, 2023 at Mt. Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church.  If you haven't heard this music, this show will be revealing (and if you have then I didn't even need to tell you all of this!).  

Photo credit: Sam Rivers - flute by Tom Marcello Webster, New York, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

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