Saxophone Healing

Rova + 12 Innovative Saxophonists: The Sax Cloud @ ODC Dance Commons, Studio B, San Francisco, CA
Saturday, June 12, 2010

The Sax Cloud by Jon Raskin
Gino Robair: conductor
Integral Cloud Frame by Steve Adams

The Rova Saxophone Quartet:
Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs, Jon Raskin
plus:
Aaron Bennett, Sheldon Brown, James Fei, Vinny Golia, Frank Gratkowski, Philip Greenlief, John Ingle, Kasey Knudsen, Jayn Pettingill, Daniel Plonsey, Aram Shelton, Cory Wright

With timbre constricted to anything between a bass saxophone and a soprano saxophone the focus of the evening shifted to spatial arrangement. The alternative performance space presenting the listener with an alternative arrangement. The performers surrounding the outside with roughly one saxophone quartet spread along each corner of the large square room and the audience seated in the middle of the space. Gino Robair occupied the middle of the room as a conductor with every member of the audience facing away from him. So ingrained is the instinct to face - and view - the source of live sound that many in the audience would swivel and turn their heads to see the proceedings so carefully composed to surround.

Jon Raskin's The Sax Cloud offered up a surprisingly quiet mist of saxophone texture. The graphic scores inspired by the ariel photographs of ancient sites by Georg Gerster allowing for a cascading range of creative interpretation. The conductor exercising both a creative and coordinating role as he paints with sound while attempting to keep the room sonically in balance. Within each sub-quartet there was a designated "leader" using a predetermined set of hand signals to coordinate the materials at hand. The prolonged texture of restraint was indeed cloud-like with its complex interactions of pressure systems and sonic ecosystem of evaporation and precipitation.

The second ambitious work on the program, Steve Adams' Integral Cloud Frame, built outward from a set harmonic frame that ultimately opened up to allow for improvised bursts and short periods of melodic development. A beautiful piece that was also striking in its restraint. The illusion of movement between stationary players was striking and similar to the illusion created by stationary speakers within a surround system.

The potential for spectacle and the anticipation of loud sound masses from so many performers was never realized. These compositions were thoughtful and surprising in that regard. The compositional ideas were worked a little thin with each piece filling the span before and after intermission. So much prolonged constraint did build up a need for some kind of cathartic release. That communal moment that happens in a performance of the Sun Ra Arkestra where the members of the band circulate within and throughout the audience as they play. Something to break the dreamlike suspension of hovering at such a high altitude within so much tranquility. The levity and whimsy of Henry Brant's spatial works was conspicuously absent. Hovering within a saxophone cloud formation does offer a great deal of beauty on its own. I was left waiting to soar.

The Utopia Will Not Be Televised

Rovate: Fissures, Futures @ Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center, San Francisco, CA
Saturday, May 23, 2009

Rova Saxophone Quartet:
Larry Ochs: tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone
Jon Raskin: alto saxophone, baritone saxophone
Bruce Ackley: soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
Steve Adams: alto saxophone, soprano saxophone

with guests:
Lillevan: video
Lisle Ellis: bass, electronics
Charlotte Hug: viola
Joan Jeanrenaud: cello
Carla Kihlstedt: violin
Thomas Lehn: electronics
Kjell Nordeson: drums, percussion

Collaborative, structured improvisation as an aural utopia and expressive resurrection of the "Spaceship Earth" idealism of Buckminster Fuller. The musicians seated in a semicircle - spilling off of and back onto the stage - with their backs to the audience to keep an eye upon the video screen. Ironically, the video artist is seated with his back to that very screen. Video responding to aural inputs. Improvisers responding to visual stimuli. Somehow, this particular vision of utopia makes sparing use of color.

The individual members of this all-star ensemble contribute compositions that draw out thoughtful group improvisations. Composition as structured improvisation. Much of the notation is graphic and temporally laid out along grids with shapes and images triggering sound. The social order behind this music being collaborative to the point of allowing few individual forays into the sonic (and visual) foreground. Images of fluids, microscopic slides and geometric shapes often dominating the video content. Moments of conversant interplay between players bubble up and back into the mix. The sounds are alluring. The compositional structures are particularly captivating. Given the mix of media and the musical prowess of these players the event never collapses into spectacle.

The contrast between individual compositions is striking. Charlotte Hug's slipway to galaxies concludes the final set with an exploration of sparse beauty. Lisle Ellis's In Praise of the Living Verb opens the first set with a pulsating sequencing of individual players that mixes the density of its parts through addition and subtraction. The dynamic range of materials and ideas offering a glimpse into musical territories barely realized and explored. Composed music often falls well short of the intensity and extended potential mined by good "free" improvisers. These structured improvisations provide a sense of form often lacking in uninhibited creativity. Compositions that demand an active ear from the performer along with a collaborative ethic. The result is often stimulating to the ears and the brain that sits between them.