Sam Rivers is one of the major figures in contemporary jazz: a brilliant improviser and one of the defining influences of multi-instrumentalism in jazz, performing on tenor and soprano saxophones, flute, and piano. For decades the leader of his own small groups, Rivers has also performed and recorded with artists of such diverse styles as Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Max Roach, Andrew Hill, and J.C. Higginbotham, as well as blues masters T. Bone Walker, Jimmy Witherspoon, and B.B. King. He has also performed with symphony orchestras including the San Francisco Orchestra with Serge Ozawa. He is a prolific composer of songs, melodies and compositions for large and small ensembles, jazz, and symphony orchestras.

As a catalyst for the recognition of a generation of avant-garde and free musicians, he established with the help and cooperation of his wife Bea, Studio RivBea, a workshop, rehearsal and performance space. Many of the talented creative performers have since become renown on the international scene. He is a former faculty member and visiting artist at Wesleyan University, Dartmouth College, Cornish Institute and the New School of Music in New York.