News & Updates — Sam Rivers

One of my favorite multi-reed improvisors, Sam Rivers was born on this day in 1923. He came from Oklahoma, his father and grandfather were gospel singers and helped give little Sammy the music bug. After some time as a youth in Chicago & Little Rock, he started his professional career on the West Coast in the '40s, playing in Jimmy Witherspoon's band, as well as with Quincy Jones. In Boston he started working with teenage drummer Tony Williams, who in turn brought him into the Miles Davis Quintet in '64, if only for a brief spell (captured on the Miles In...

Another underappreciated jazz artist, Hilton Ruiz seems to have been lumped into the "Latin jazz" ghetto, but make no mistake, his music (and that of many other Latino jazz artists) is worthy of a place in the landscape of JAZZ. It has always irked me how many (usually white) fans of jazz have no problem with including the music of the European avant-garde improvisers in their listening but it's just too much of a stretch to include artists with names like Ruiz, Ray Barretto, Mongo Santamaría, Sabu Martinez, Eddie Palmieri and the like to be considered SERIOUS jazz artists? Fuck,...