The Rova Saxophone Quartet With Andrea Centazzo The Bay

On the same trip to the United States that produced “U.S.A. Concerts” and “Environment for Sextet”, Andrea Centazzo also connected with the San Francisco-based Rova Saxophone Quartet, formed the previous year by Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt and Bruce Ackley (all playing various saxophones). While not as well-known now as they once were, over the last 40+ years the ensemble has produced dozens of albums and collaborated with diverse figures like Anthony Braxton, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, and Henry Kaiser. The first of those collaborations captured on tape was "The Bay", recorded in California during December of 1978.

In Centazzo’s own words: “At the end of the 1970s this group (R.O.V.A.) of four saxophone players appeared on the scene of improvised and jazz music, bringing with them a gust of fresh air in their unusual approach to themes, technical dexterity and daring choices of language contamination”. Launching in with the almost symphonic piece, “Trobar Clus”, which takes up the majority of the first side and deploys complex clusters tones and rhythms to startling effect, the album progresses through a series of pieces that follow Centazzo’s disposition toward working across diverse arrangements of players, breaking down into trios, duos, and full ensemble works, each composed by the quartet, Centazzo, or in collaboration between the two.

Utilizing compositional structures that allow broad spaces for improvisation, while highlighting each player’s highly individual skill set within a various ensembles, trios, duets and solos, to underline the soloist skills of the musicians, and organizes the sound situations into ensembles, trios, duets and solos, “The Bay” is a stunning piece of much neglected creativity, riding the American and Italian scenes, from the mid to late 1970s, as well as drawing the ear back toward the origins of The Rova Saxophone Quartet.