Sam Rivers: Fuchsia Swing Song

For this listener, Sam Rivers' many great albums from the early 1970s onward represent the best of his most daring, diverse and interesting compositions, but there is no denying the superb qualities of his debut, 1964's Fuchsia Swing Song.

It's amazing that Rivers was 41 before he cut this album at the end of that year, but at least he lived long enough to generate some really remarkable recordings.  He'd toured with Miles Davis in Japan during the summer, with young drummer Tony Williams encouraging Davis to hire Rivers, though it did not, apparently, go well with the mercurial trumpeter and leader.  The resulting album, Miles in Tokyo, is intriguing because of how different Rivers sounded compared to George Coleman, whom he replaced, and Wayne Shorter, who replaced him.

That difference is mostly in Rivers' grainy sound, his powerful sense of dynamics, crackling runs, stunning fluidity and unusual approach to melody and rhythm.  When it came to making his first recording, Rivers brought in the Davis rhythm section of Williams (who'd first played professionally at 13 with Rivers in Boston) and the great Ron Carter on bass.  Rounding out the lineup is the fine pianist Jaki Byard, who'd been in a band with Rivers years before and also was an important contributor to the bands of Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy.  It is notable that Rivers rarely recorded with a pianist, but Byard's history with the leader and his sympathetic playing makes it work well.

Fuchsia Swing Song definitely has the bop touch to it, with a strong dose of blues, especially in Byard's comping and light touch while soloing ("Luminous Monolith" even features a brief snippet that sounds like barrelhouse-style playing). Williams makes tremendous use of his amazing cymbal along with fantastic polyrhythmic work, while Carter is typically stellar in his highly supportive playing.  Given his first opportunity to showcase his playing, Rivers takes full advantage and makes full use of his abilities.  "Beatrice," named for the leader's wife, is a rare and pretty ballad, showing Rivers' ability to yield warm and still challenging solos.

Rivers went on to record a few more sides for Blue Note, which embraced the so-called "avant garde" in the mid-Sixties, signing Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and others, but the label was sold and most of these musicians stopped recording for Blue Note by 1968.  He had a fruitful and notably freer period with Impulse in the first part of the Seventies and then recorded for many smaller labels over the years, including his own Rivbea Sound. 

Rivers died at the end of 2011 at age 88, still nowhere near as recognized as he should have been because he was one of the greatest and most distinctive composers and players in jazz for some 45 years.  Fuchsia Swing Song is where it all started and is a great introduction to the work of this unsung master.

Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy: Cornell 1964

This 2007 release on Blue Note Records is another one of those happy musical discoveries--coming about when Sue Graham Mingus, the widow of the great bassist and composer Charles Mingus found a tape of a concert held at Cornell University in upstate New York on 18 March 1964.

The two sets make up the double disc offering here and the programming is, characteristically for Mingus diverse and different.  The first tune is a solo romp by pianist Jaki Byard, who creates a piece brimming with upbeat feeling based on stunning virtuosity.  Byard then comps quietly behind Mingus, who solos to great effectiveness on a piece by one of his heroes, Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady."

Then comes one of the centerpieces of this record and one of the most politically charged pieces in the leader's impressive catalog of original compositions: "Fables of Faubus."  This jibe at the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, who fought the federally ordered desegregation of schools in 1957.  While the vocals decrying Faubus are important to hear, and certainly had a place in 1964, the piece is also a gem because of the way the remarkable sextet moved through the tune with its shifting tempos, excellent soloing, and remarkable harmonic interplay.  Byars, as just one example, takes a bit of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and builds upon it in his great solo and Mingus quotes "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" in his solo.  But, this is a triumph of a band making the most of its ample and impressive resources and led by a composer at the peak of his powers.

"Orange was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk" is a beautiful ballad, in which we hear the phenomenal Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, employing all of the explosive, technically imposing, and utterly unique elements of his playing, with Mingus clearly encouraging Dolphy on.

The great composer Billy Strayhorn's "Take the 'A' Train," another piece associated with Ellington, also gets a great workout and Byard's soloing takes in stride playing and other "older" styles in weaving a fascinating history-based performance.  Mingus's phenomenal bass solo, in conjunction with Danny Richmond's remarkable drumming, features the bassist talking, grunting, and otherwise having a hell of a time while the crowd laughs and roars in appreciation.  Dolphy offers another great solo while the band rumbles and roars behind him and the pieces closes to end a spectacular set.

The second set is anchored by another marathon piece, the mind-blowing "Meditations," which runs over 31 minutes.  While it does have its meditative moments, it also has its uptempo sections, where the band, firing on all cylinders, displays all of its stregnths and shows no discernible weaknesses, letdowns, or misfirings.  Hearing Clifford Jordan solo on tenor, while Dolphy backs him on bass clarinet, and the rhythm section churns and burns along with them, is really interesting and exciting, especially as the finish pits the horns against Byard's hard block chords and Richmond's stirring drumming and as Mingus can be heard directing the band where to go next.

"So Long Eric" has been taken by many to be a posthumously-titled homage to Dolphy, who died just three months later in Berlin, but it was actually given that title by Mingus as Dolphy left the band to take the tour to Europe that included his untimely passing.

It being the day after St. Patrick's Day, Mingus tossed in a version of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and introduced trumpeter "Johnny O'Coles" as the "only Irishman in the band."  The album closes with the Fats Waller gem "Jitterbug Waltz", a fantastic rendering that highlights Dolphy's flute playing and provides more of the leader's great bass work.

It wasn't long after this recording that Mingus' career took a downturn, along with his mental and physical health.   There were later highlights like Let My Children Hear Music from the early 70s and the Changes albums from the same period, but the unit he had the year that the Cornell concert was made was exceptional and perhaps the high point of his long and remarkable career.