Jazz great Sam Rivers’ most important and popular song is the ode to his wife “Beatrice.” Originally released on the album Fuchsia Swing Song (1964), the song has become a jazz standard, particularly for tenor saxophonists. Rivers wrote “Beatrice” as part of his daily composition ritual and claimed that when he thought of his wife the ideas started percolating. A 2012 article for the music label Blue Note’s website describes “Beatrice” as a song that “stands out in the indomitable saxophonist’s oeuvre, a promise of the shape of jazz to come, a minimalist deconstruction of jazz convention, and a pure expression of love. Playing the tune is a bit like windsurfing; a balancing act that demands attention to its varying waves, but carries those who have internalized the free-flowing aesthetic and know which direction they want to take it.”1
During the 1970s, Bea and Sam ran a jazz loft called “Studio Rivbea” in New York City’s NoHo district. It was located on Bond Street in Lower Manhattan and was originally opened as a public performance space as part of the first New York Musicians Festival in 1970. Critic John Litweiler has written that “in New York Loft Jazz meant Free Jazz in the Seventies” and Studio Rivbea was “the most famous of the lofts.” Lofts were important in the development of jazz because they were venues created by artists for presenting music to the public free from the influence of managers and labels. This allowed for music to be free of extra-musical concerns that would be present in a nightclub or concert hall situation. A series of recordings made at Rivbea were issued under the title Wildflowers on the Douglas label.
The manuscript score for Beatrice runs 37 pages and includes parts for 20 different instruments.
After 56 years together, Rivers outlived his wife by seven years. In Bea’s 2005 obituary, her sister Shirley Delibero said, “That was her whole life. She loved being Sam’s wife. She was so much into what he did. And that’s what made him as good as he was. He had never had to sway away from doing his music because she was part of it.”
Cox, Erin. Beatrice Rivers Handled Business of Jazz for Legendary Saxophonist. Orlando Sentinel, November 28, 2005.
This is a collaboration between the Center for American Music, Theodore M. Finney Music Library, and Archives & Special Collections.