Contours

Sam Rivers - Contours

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CD Details

Artist: Sam Rivers
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Original recording remastered
Running Time: 49 unknown-units
Published: 2004-10-05
CD Release Date: 2004-10-05
Music Label: Blue Note Records
Soundtracks:

Point Of Many Returns
Dance Of The Tripedal
Euterpe
Mellifluous Cacophony
Mellifluous Cacophony (Alternate Take)

Music reviews of Contours

Music Review: Took Me a Minute
Rating: 4 Stars

This recent RVG by Sam Rivers - tenor & soprano saxophones, and flute, Freddie Hubbard - trumpet, Herbie Hancock - piano, Ron Carter - bass, and Joe Chambers - drums was recorded on 5/21/65. Stars edited on 1/4/07 to 3 stars.

It took me a while to warm up to this one. Not really through any fault of its own, though. After getting Fuchsia Swing Song and going crazy for it, I had incredibly high hopes for this one. The first couple listens were a bit of a let-down but I didn't give up on it. I have been rewarded nicely for my efforts. =)

Now I only have one complaint with this album... or two depending on how you look at it. Mellifluous Cacophony is my least favorite song on here, and it happens to be the only one of which an alternate take is provided. That right there is 20 minutes of music that doesn't interest me very much. I like the head of it and both of Sam's tenor solos, but from Herbie's solo onward that song just doesn't do it for me. It's too linear or something.

As for the goodies, tracks 1 through 3, I'm not altogether sure why I felt let down by this album those first couple times I listened to it. I love these 3 tracks now! This is certainly a much different band than that of Fuchsia Swing Song, though. That needs to be clearly stated. Hancock, Carter, and Chambers don't have that degree of flexible, time-smearing elasticity that the Fuchsia core trio of Jaki Byard, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams had. On that album, Jaki and Tony may as well have been sharing the same consciousness. They are locked so tight on to what each other is doing. Tony reacts marvelously to all those master-class jaunts through jazz history that Jaki takes.

This band, the Contours band, is more straight-ahead than that. Kinda. They are oftentimes more about texturizing and decorating the vamp rather than changing things up altogether... though there is some of that here, also. Hubbard swings like crazy on Point of Many Returns, and elsewhere this just may be some of my favorite weird playing I've ever heard from Herbie. Yes, I have to make special mention of that... there is some fantastic and inventive playing from Herbie! Throughout the first 3 tracks there are some times where everything slows down and the music just has this awesome floating quality as if you've just been sucked into a dream in slow-motion.

If this disc had alternates of any or all of the first 3 tracks, and if those alternates were as interesting in their own way as are the takes presented here, I'd probably be giving this more stars but it pretty much tails off for me after the end of track 3. I like the best stuff here, I just wish there were more of it.

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