Customer Reviews

Holland/Rivers

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Intimate improvisational music played with absolute mastery by a criminally underrated saxophonist/flutist/composer and a great virtuoso of the double bass. A profound musical journey - but also just a dialogue between friends. Essential.

Please be aware that this music will not immediately mandate foot tapping. Nor was it intended to, at least not during the first listen. It IS the combination of two legendary musicians providing wholly improvised, extended duo performances that never weaken with time. This music was recorded in 1976, and is still fresh. It does not fall into the traps of, I am sorry to say standard, so-called free form music, with its inability to focus. Rather, this musical set brings the listener to and through distinctly formed stream of consciousness improvisations with Sam Rivers playing and soprano then tenor saxes, underpinned by Dave Holland on Bass. This, along with Volume two of this collaboration, should be a part of anyone's collection who appreciates interactive music which develops musical forms with structure and clarity; music that never fades.

Excellent reviews, I just want to add that interested listeners might also want to check out the David Holland album "Conference of the Birds". It features Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton on reeds and flutes, and the incredible percussionist Barry Altschul in 1972. Mr. Rivers also sounds incredible on the Tony Williams album "Lifetime". I highly recommend that disk as well.

Never knew who the guy was as he rode next to me on a Greyhound bus. I was a teenager in a Knoxville, TN military academy on my way home for a visit.
I offered him a cigarette and he politely declined and we began to talk. Seems he had missed a flight in Knoxville, TN and took the bus for a 5 hour trip into Columbia, TN for a private flight which was waiting for him there. He told me who he was and that he was a kind of famous performer. When he asked had I ever heard of them, I dully replied "nope...never" lol I was only interested in smoking up some cigs and getting home. He said "I bet if you ask your mom, she's heard of us. Well when I told her and my Aunt that owned the bus station in Columbia, they were really excited, but happened to somehow just miss him for an autograph opportunity. After all he was in a hurry. Just a lil' story....

Please, somebody email me and tell me what it is about this kind of music that people enjoy listening to it. It seems so disonent, it has no melody, rhyme, or reason. It sounds like Ferris Bueller playing the clarinet when he says: "Never had one lesson."