Sam Rivers has had one of the longest and most distinguished careers of his generation. He has played for over seven decades with dozens of major performers, including Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Williams, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Andrew Hill, Dave Holland, Grant Green, and Don Pullen. Sam Rivers is still recording and still performing today with 5 of his own bands, from The Sam Rivers Trio to the Rivbea Orchestra.
Cecil McBee has been heard on hundreds of recordings over fifty years. He has played with Jackie McLean, Wayne Shorter, Andrew Hill, Charles Lloyd, Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef, Sonny Simmons, Archie Shepp, and dozens and dozens more.
Warren Smith played with Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Ken McIntyre, Joe Zawinul, Roland Kirk, Elvin Jones, the Max Roach M’boom ensemble, Aretha Franklin and dozens of other greats. Smith opened his own loft, Studio WIS which lasted in the 1990’s. Smith taught for many years at State University of New York at Old Westbury arts program started by Makanda Ken McIntyre.
The full version of this film is interesting for more than just shots of the performers. It captures moments of Sam’s wife, Beatrice, the “Bea” of Rivbea. It also captures moments when the band is setting up on stage. Sam is running the mic cables and coming off stage is a very young Dave Holland, presumably from a preceding performance that night.
While we have not yet found the audio recording of the concert, Juma does believe it will be found in his collection.