Item Description

This 5 LP box-set is a summary of the six volumes in the Sam Rivers Archives Project series and also adds some additional previously unheard music to the series. In addition to the LPs, the set is accompanied by an excellent book that includes pictures from the RivBea Loft in downtown NYC in the 1970s to Rivers’ final, productive years in Orlando, as well as new text from Hazell and the original CD liner notes.

As an addition to Rivers discography, this series fills in gaps and adds new dimensions. Picking up after Rivers’ progression towards free jazz traced on his Blue Note recordings from the 1960s and his seminal contribution to Dave Holland’s Conference of the Birds (ECM, 1972), the archive series is a nice documentation of the RivBea loft time and later. For Mikailionis, it was the “depth of the music, freedom of thought, explorative idea and expression,” that brought him to loft era music in general.

SIDE A
EMANATION, PART I (23:53)

SIDE B
EMANATION, PART II (20:48)

Sam Rivers: tenor sax, soprano sax, flute
Cecil McBee: bass
Norman Connors: drums

Recorded June 3, 1971
The Jazz Workshop, Boston, MA

————–

SIDE C
UNIVERSAL MESSAGE, PART I (19:10)

SIDE D
UNIVERSAL MESSAGE, PART II (26:23)

Sam Rivers: tenor sax, flute, piano
Joe Daley: tuba, euphonium
Dave Holland: bass
Barry Altschul: drums
Charlie Persip: drums

Recorded November 7, 1977 Jazztage Berliner 1977, Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany

————–

SIDE E
RICOCHET, PART I (13:13)
RICOCHET, PART II (9:26)

SIDE F
RICOCHET, PART III (21:28)

Sam Rivers: tenor sax, soprano sax, piano
Dave Holland: bass
Barry Altschul: drums

Recorded January 12, 1978 Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA

————–

SIDE G
AN EVENING IN HAMBURG, PART I (18:44)

SIDE H
BLOSSOMS (previously unreleased) (21:10)

Sam Rivers: tenor sax, soprano sax, flute, piano
Joe Daley: tuba, euphonium
Dave Holland: bass, cello
Thurman Barker: drums

Recorded May 15, 1979 Hamburg, Germany

—————

SIDE I

UNDULATION, PART I (11:18)
UNDULATION, PART II (4:27)
UNDULATION, PART III (5:38)

Sam Rivers: tenor sax
Jerry Byrd: guitar
Rael-Wesley Grant: electric bass
Steve Ellington: drums

Recorded May 17, 1981 Florence, Italy

SIDE J

IMPROVISATION III (18:25)
NIGHTFALL (previously unreleased) (4:40)

Sam Rivers: tenor sax, soprano sax, piano, vocals
Doug Matthews: bass, electric bass, bass clarinet
Anthony Cole: drums, tenor sax, piano

Recorded March 9, 2002 Freeport-McMoRan Theatre, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA