My review of ECM's Re:solutions reissue of Sam Rivers' Contrasts, an overlooked gem, today at All About Jazz.
In a significant discography now approaching forty titles as a leader across five decades, Contrasts stands out as the only recording that left-of-center saxophonist/flautist Sam Rivers led for ECM. Originally released in 1980 on vinyl and previously unavailable on CD, it is finally seeing the light of day again as part of the label's Re:solutions series—and in three formats, no less: CD, four for the first time and one only available previously for a limited time in Japan; high resolution digital download for the first time; and vinyl, once again. It's about time.
Rivers made his ECM debut on Dave Holland's classic 1973 ECM recording, Conference of the Birds. In the years between these two recordings, the pair continued to work together in a number of formats, most notably as the duo responsible for Sam Rivers/Dave Holland Vol. 1 (I.A.I., 1976) and Vol. 2 (I.A.I., 1977), and in a trio with drummer Barry Altschul on Sizzle (Impulse!, 1976) and Paragon (Fluid, 1977). But it was with Waves (Tomato, 1979), that the seeds of Contrasts were born, as Rivers, Holland were joined by drummer/percussionist Thurman Barker, a similarly avant-reaching member of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Continue reading here...
Bookmarks