Label: Esp Disk’, 2021
Personnel - Larry Ochs: tenor saxophone; Jon Raskin: baritone saxophone; Steve Adams: alto and sopranino saxophone; Bruce Ackley: soprano and tenor saxophone.
The San Francisco-based Rova Saxophone Quartet has been active since 1977, creating timbre-concentrated music that, typically following defined structures, finds ample room for improvisation. The four technically brilliant members of the ensemble - Jon Raskin, Steve Adams, Bruce Ackley and Larry Ochs - are known for their wide range approach, rhythmic inventiveness and intriguing arrangements, which incorporate a variety of tone colors.
On this new album, The Circumference of Reason, they opt for less cathartic grooves and a more self-possessed posture that achieves better outcomes on the opening and closing tracks, curiously both related to the late American free jazz saxophonist Glenn Spearman. The former cut, “The Extrapolation of the Inevitable”, is one of his compositions, presenting synchronized angular melodies and extemporaneous concessions as parts of Ochs’ competent arrangement; the latter number, “The Enumeration”, is Adam’s dedication to Spearman, where a solid horn-consummated background sustains fierce improvisation, and well-aligned collective passages take advantage of winding counterpoint.
The group harnesses its privileged communication, deepening the dialogues spontaneously on the two versions of “NC17”. The Version 1 seeks hybrid states by infusing atmospheric ostinatos, drones and casual blows whose repose is occasionally disturbed by muscular incursions, percussive techniques and multiphonic grumbles. In turn, Version 2 is busier at the outset - including squawking cacophony and a pulsating baritone - before becoming whisperingly lost in thought. The tension returns in bursts for the final section, and the persistent ebb and flow that characterizes their pieces doesn’t apply to the minimalist title track, a limbo of hushed, disperse sounds that left me lightly somnolent.
This mildly enjoyable Rova still provides some moments of fascinating horn interplay.
B
Favorite Tracks:
01 - The Extrapolation of the Inevitable ► 05 - NC17 Version 2 ► 06 - The Enumeration