The '70s, though sometimes thought of as jazz doldrums, were in many ways a time of significant upheaval and innovation. The music plugged in during the decade, yielding results both good and bad, and that left the acoustic mainstreamers hurting for gigs, attempting pop crossover, or fleeing to Europe and Japan. The jazz avant-garde, which enjoyed a spurt of recognition in the '60s, went underground, into lofts and other alternative spaces where it was free to explore myriad sounds, ideas and combinations of instruments.
It was in this environment that the Rova Saxophone Quartet was born in San Francisco in 1977. Four men, steeped in free jazz and 20th-century art music, gathered together to see what kind of racket they could make with just four saxophones.
Why a sax foursome? "We had two records that were seeds," explains Larry Ochs. "One was a piece on [an Anthony] Braxton record in '74 that had all the [sax] guys in the World Saxophone Quartet except David Murray. That group formed a couple months before us [in New York], but we didn't know about them until we were about four months in existence. The other album, also from '74, was Steve Lacy's Saxophone Special, where he was joined by three British saxophonists, Derek Bailey on guitar and a guy on electronics. Bruce Ackley [who plays tenor and soprano for Rova] had already been in a drummer-less band. The thing was basically his idea."
They were joined by Jon Raskin, who blithely switched from alto to baritone to fill out Rova's sound, and Andrew Voigt (who was replaced by Steve Adams in 1988).
"We got together and there was a kind of free scene in San Francisco, and by that I mean free, as in free of charge," Ochs says. "There were a lot of good loft venues and a lot of self-indulgent crap went on, just like in New York, only without as many good musicians and with more psychos."
Even from the outset, Rova was not just about skronking out, Ochs, 54, explains: "We wanted some structure. We felt that with four like instruments there had to be. Sometimes we'd do free improv all night in the warehouse where we rehearsed, but we'd be taking mental notes. 'What were we doing?' Andrew liked to stop in the middle. 'What is that? Let's figure it out and make it part of the vocabulary.' We always did free playing but there was also composition right from the beginning, structure improvisation. We were all individually idiosyncratic enough that what we did was more like new [art] music than jazz. It's a lot more jazz now than it was then."
Rova evolved over the years to incorporate elements of rock, blues and ethnic styles from Europe, Africa and Asia. The mainstay all along, though, has been the resonant, lapidary sound that emits from a quartet of adventurous and individualistic reedmen. The music teems with jagged rasps, squalling overtones and gutbucket harmonies. And melody, too. Och's "The Drift," from the band's most recent CD, Resistance (Victo), is built around a simple, brawny blues riff.
Rova's most adventurous undertaking took place in '83, when they embarked on a not-exactly-sanctioned tour of the Soviet Union. Ochs recalls that, when meeting with like-minded Russian musicians, they'd wait until the door was closed and locked, for fear that the neighbors would hear English and call the authorities. He admits to having more than a few paranoid fantasies about being locked in a Siberian gulag. "It was in the air over there," he says with a laugh. "We brought a big crew of folks with us. We totally bought into it."
The American avant-gardists received rock-show responses during their 12-stop trek. "At the time, Rova was incapable of doing anything that wasn't in-your-face, and they just loved it," Ochs recalls. "The concerts weren't exactly OK, we didn't exactly have permission. There was something intrinsically exotic about being at those gigs."
In 1985, the quartet incorporated as a nonprofit organization, Rova: Arts, in order to land grants to put on special concerts. Over the years, the group has collaborated with such luminaries as Braxton, Lacy, John Zorn, Fred Frith and Kronos Quartet.
Rova has figured out a way to last for more than a quarter century as an avant-garde ensemble, but it is in no way getting drunk off the public trough. "The grants don't become income," Ochs explains. " … Most of them are project-driven grants. We pay ourselves a fee, pay the other musicians, but we've never been able to raise enough money to pay ourselves to work for the organization. We're essentially volunteers."
So how does a rogue saxophonist get by in the early 21st century? "I do a billion gigs, if I can," Ochs says. "My wife teaches at the University of California. John and Bruce have full-time jobs. And Steve, he figures it out as he goes. We make some money off Rova, but if this was the only thing we made we'd all be out on the street."
Contact Music Editor Eric Snider at 813-248-8888, ext. 114, or at snider@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2004.