By Josef Woodard | Published December 2021
After 40-plus years in action, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet has mastered and reinvented the sound of four varied saxophones working together, individually and toward some “X” factor collective voice. That unique legacy gains further proof of vision and forward motion on its new project on ESP.
Covering a range of tools in the saxophonic toolbox/palette, the combined forces of Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs and Jon
Raskin offer up six tracks, bristling with the characteristic mesh of free play (often group improvisation versus soloing) and taut structural passages. Additional saxophonic reference comes in the form of homages to the late Glenn Spearman (who shared with ROVA a San Francisco Bay Area grounding). An Ochs-arranged version of Spearman’s “The Extrapolation” opens the album, which closes with Adams’ muscular elegy “The Enumeration,” dedicated to Spearman.
Keeping options and concepts open and subject to change is a long-running ROVA mandate, as evidenced here by two very different versions of the tune “NC 17,” by turns atmospheric and antic.
While essentially operating under the aegis of jazz, nebulous though that moniker can be, ROVA incorporates aspects of modernist harmony and rhythm — shades of Messiaen, Bartók and unraveled Ravel, for instance — and swing-free minimalist kinetics, reminding us of the saxophone’s original intention as a “classical” instrument (an intention that never fully came to fruition). Here, “Xenophobia” and the title track, “The Circumference Of Reason,” assert chamber-like frameworks, interlaced with solo outings.
In all, Circumference teems with the stuff that makes ROVA an important institution, including locomotion, abstraction and a particular avant-reedy glory of its own devising.
The Circumference Of Reason: The Extrapolation Of The Inevitable; NC 17; The Circumference Of Reason; Xenophobia; NC 17, Version 2; The Enumeration. (52:48)
Personnel: Bruce Ackley, soprano and tenor saxophones; Steve Adams, alto and sopranino saxophones; Larry Ochs, tenor saxophone; Jon Raskin, baritone saxophone.
Ordering Info: espdisk.com
