Rova Saxophone Quartet — The Circumference of Reason

Released in October of last year The Circumference of Reason is a new six-track release from this San Francisco Avant jazz collective. The tracks move from densely weaved joint horn attacks, onto more stripped moody and angular fare, through to building and unfurling honk scapes.

The release appears on the long-running & highly respected New York jazz label ESP-Disk. It appears as either a CD or digital download- I’m reviewing the former. The CD comes presented in a four-panel digipak, which features a selection of washed-out watercolour like blocks of shapes- edged with black and red texts. I’m not sure how many copies of these were pressed, but at present, it’s still in print- head here to find out more. 

The Rova Saxophone Quartet started in the year 1977- and over the years have put out coming towards forty full-length releases. The project brings together Bruce Ackley – soprano and tenor saxophones, Steve Adams – alto and sopranino saxophones, Larry Ochs – tenor sax, and Jon Raskin – baritone sax.

The six tracks here each run between the five and thirteen-minute mark.  We open with “The Extrapolation of the Inevitable” which is a tightening sonic torque of vamping repetition & layered dramatic-to-manic horn weave- with some wonderfully dizzying moments of interlocking chaos. By the third track we’ve come to the nine-minute forty-six title track- this opens with a selection of spaced and pressing honks- which move between the mid to slightly higher range. As we move on the players start to create a blend of awkward & shifting interplays- which mixe forking quacks, reeling breathy purrs, more harmonic to moody curls, and rapidly playful blends of speeding hisses to vamping simmers.

By tracks five we’ve come to the just over thirteen minutes of "NC17, Version Two"- which opens with a busy weave of honks and billows, which like been trapped inside a highly agitated city traffic jam. As the track moves on, we find a caustically compelling mixture of low to mid-range horn work, and more seared squeals ‘n’ bays- with the & flow of the playing often creating a feeling unbalancing waving-ness, as we find sustained note piping blend with more jittery and nervy flights. The final track is just over eight minutes of “The Enumeration” starts off with brooding horn noir-like hover being darted by baying and grating interplay. As the track processes, the collective nicely build & shift things- going from expressively pulled out wails with forking edges, to more layered vamp runs, through baying and fiery weaving interplay.

The Circumference of Reason is a great example of fired-up, to expressively moody Avant jazz- with sometimes the two wonderfully blending together to create splendid and dizzying chaos.