Biography
The experimental spirit pervading jazz during the 1960s and 1970s opened pathways for instrumental combinations once considered unorthodox. Traditional quartets built around horn, piano, bass, and drums no longer held exclusive sway, prompting players to pursue novel timbres and textures. Ornette Coleman dispensed with piano altogether, while Cecil Taylor’s trio featuring Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray omitted the bass. Musicians tied to Chicago’s AACM went further, often stripping away one or several rhythm-section components; the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in its earliest form, operated without a drummer.
Groups built entirely from matching instruments therefore emerged as a logical outgrowth. The World Saxophone Quartet’s arrival in the late 1970s popularized the all-saxophone format. Almost simultaneously, the San Francisco-based Rova Saxophone Quartet came into existence. Though it never matched the WSQ’s commercial reach, Rova established itself as the second-most prominent ensemble of its type and arguably the most daring. Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt, and Bruce Ackley launched the quartet in October 1977; its debut performance took place the following February at Mills College in Oakland.
From the outset Rova stood apart. Rooted in free jazz yet deeply engaged with twentieth-century concert music, the members drew acknowledged inspiration from Charles Ives, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, and Edgard Varése alongside jazz figures such as John Coltrane, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, and Ornette Coleman. The group cut its first record, Cinema Rovaté, in 1978 for Ochs’s Metalanguage imprint. In subsequent years it issued more than two dozen albums on Black Saint, New Albion, Sound Aspects, and hatART.
Rova has toured extensively across the globe. In 1983 it became the first American new-music ensemble to visit the Soviet Union; a documentary of the trip later aired on PBS. Three years afterward, the Ganelin Trio became the first Soviet jazz ensemble to perform in the United States, appearing as Rova’s guests in the Pre-Echoes series of collaborative concerts. That series later welcomed John Zorn, Braxton, and Terry Riley. When Voigt departed in 1988, Steve Adams took his place. Since 1985 Rova has operated as a registered not-for-profit, allowing it to commission new compositions and advance both its own activities and the broader cause of contemporary music. Its repertoire incorporates serial procedures, cue-card game pieces, rock elements, and free improvisation; the sole unchanging trait remains a refusal of cliché.
Groups built entirely from matching instruments therefore emerged as a logical outgrowth. The World Saxophone Quartet’s arrival in the late 1970s popularized the all-saxophone format. Almost simultaneously, the San Francisco-based Rova Saxophone Quartet came into existence. Though it never matched the WSQ’s commercial reach, Rova established itself as the second-most prominent ensemble of its type and arguably the most daring. Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt, and Bruce Ackley launched the quartet in October 1977; its debut performance took place the following February at Mills College in Oakland.
From the outset Rova stood apart. Rooted in free jazz yet deeply engaged with twentieth-century concert music, the members drew acknowledged inspiration from Charles Ives, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, and Edgard Varése alongside jazz figures such as John Coltrane, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, and Ornette Coleman. The group cut its first record, Cinema Rovaté, in 1978 for Ochs’s Metalanguage imprint. In subsequent years it issued more than two dozen albums on Black Saint, New Albion, Sound Aspects, and hatART.
Rova has toured extensively across the globe. In 1983 it became the first American new-music ensemble to visit the Soviet Union; a documentary of the trip later aired on PBS. Three years afterward, the Ganelin Trio became the first Soviet jazz ensemble to perform in the United States, appearing as Rova’s guests in the Pre-Echoes series of collaborative concerts. That series later welcomed John Zorn, Braxton, and Terry Riley. When Voigt departed in 1988, Steve Adams took his place. Since 1985 Rova has operated as a registered not-for-profit, allowing it to commission new compositions and advance both its own activities and the broader cause of contemporary music. Its repertoire incorporates serial procedures, cue-card game pieces, rock elements, and free improvisation; the sole unchanging trait remains a refusal of cliché.
Albums
