Why this tune?
This week’s tune is another jazz standard and jam session favorite, Sam Rivers’ “Beatrice.” He recorded it on his 1964 album Fuschia Swing Song, after which it entered the jazz canon, with almost 150 recordings to date. According to Second Hand Songs, all of those recordings are instrumental with the exception of one track with lyrics sung by Alyssa Allgood from 2016.
The Blue Note profile of the song notes that Rivers wrote the tune as a loving tribute to his wife, wo was also his business partner in the production company and performance space they ran in the 1970s.
It’s easy to see the appeal of “Beatrice” to players at all levels. It’s a short 16-bar form that packs plenty of complexity and beauty in that space. As the Blue Note profile concludes, “it’s the rare tune that can be played at almost any tempo without sacrificing its head-over-heels heaviness, or perhaps its essential lightness.”
I’m sharing my first take at the tune, a short version with some extended vamps along the way.
Tunes On Tuesday Reel
Check it out!
Sam Rivers
Oren Levine, jazz pianist and songwriter 