Sam Rivers Trio and NEC Jazz Orchestra
New Music Now series
Institute for Contemporary Art
South Boston, 7:30 p.m.
$25/$20

It's almost perverse to include an 84-year-old man in a series called New Music Now, but Sam Rivers isn't your average octogenarian. The reedsman, who has played jazz since the 1950s, is a living repository of free jazz, a performer whose recordings over the past two decades have become essential listening for those interested in the shape of jazz to come.

Rivers, originally from Oklahoma, started his musical career in Boston. He studied viola at Boston Conservatory, but quickly found himself blowing reeds instruments in the lively Boston jazz scene of the 1950s. He played in trumpeter Herb Pomeroy's legendary bebop big band and collaborated with a young Tony Williams, who would later introduce Rivers to Miles Davis.

Rivers appeared on Miles in Tokyo (1964), one of Davis's more experimental recordings. Rivers's performance pops off the record, with arresting passages of staccato skronking that never lose their basic harmonic core, even while rambling. Rivers is one of those sax players who make your brain feel like it's moving in place.

After splitting with Miles, Rivers cut a few recordings for Blue Note, among which Fuschia Swing Song (1964) was the strongest. Rivers's playing was too out for traditionalists, even those who appreciated modal improvisation, and too restrained for fans of the uncompromising skronkfests of the out jazz scene. His recording output was slight, but he got around, playing with everyone from John Coltrane to Cecil Taylor.

In 1970, Rivers opened Cafe Rivbea, a loft space on Bond Street in downtown Manhattan, the first performance space of its kind. Cafe Rivbea was an informal, BYOB affair that allowed free jazz performers to explore the outer limits of the art form without the commercial pressures that came with performing in a nightclub. Cafe Rivbea was sort of like a downtown gallery for jazz, the venue itself confirmation that jazz had changed from dance music to art music.

Rivers eventually decamped to Orlando, Florida, where he has continued to compose music. He has issued a flurry of recordings since the mid-nineties, and, despite his age, remains an innovator in an increasingly rarefied tradition. He's best known for his trio work, where his classically informed meanderings find a complimentary setting, and for his big band compositions, which have the pleasant tendency to make the familiar shift into something unstable.

Tonight, he uses both configurations to show that you are never too old to make New Music. Rivers's trio, which includes Doug Matthews on bass, bass clarinet and bass guitar and Rion Smith on drums, made the trek with him from Orlando. The NEC Jazz Ensemble, which Rivers will lead, has a shorter commute to make.

Previously: Feldman, Courvoisier, Zorn, and Dusk at ICA

Image of Sam Rivers from Wikipedia