Uploaded December 2011 | Updated September 2026, 48 minutes ago
This track comes from the recent 3CD box-set released by Mosaic Records, and dedicated to performances by Rivers' great recent labour of love, the Rivbea Orchestra. Towards the end of his life, Rivers was reputed to have written a new composition every day for this band, and the songbook is absolutely vast (he'd been writing pieces for large forces since the 70s, though of course the economics of sustaining a jazz big band prevented much from actually being recorded or played publicly at the time). Knotty, dissonant and joyous in equal measure, one might best describe the music heard here by using the titles to one of Rivers' earlier compositions: 'Mellifluous Cocophony.' I don't think there could be a more fitting memorial.
Sam Rivers died at the age of 88 on Boxing Day 2011.
This track comes from the recent 3CD box-set released by Mosaic Records, and dedicated to performances by Rivers' great recent labour of love, the Rivbea Orchestra. Towards the end of his life, Rivers was reputed to have written a new composition every day for this band, and the songbook is absolutely vast (he'd been writing pieces for large forces since the 70s, though of course the economics of sustaining a jazz big band prevented much from actually being recorded or played publicly at the time). Knotty, dissonant and joyous in equal measure, one might best describe the music heard here by using the titles to one of Rivers' earlier compositions: 'Mellifluous Cocophony.' I don't think there could be a more fitting memorial.
Sam Rivers died at the age of 88 on Boxing Day 2011.
