Totally Spinning

Rova Saxophone Quartet , the acclaimed all-saxophone ensemble, has fundamentally extended the horizons of music since forming in 1977. Positioning themselves at music's most dynamic nexus, Rova has become an important leader in the movement of genre-bending music that has its roots in post-bop free jazz, avant-rock, and 20th century new music as well as traditional and popular styles of Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. With its potent mix of stellar musicianship and compositional creativity, Rova explores the synthesis of composition and collective improvisation. The result is adventurous works that are ardent and riveting, exhilarating and free-spirited. While much of Rova's music is composed by its members, the group has also collaborated with and commissioned new works by a wide range of creative artists. Since its founding, Rova has released over two dozen recordings of original music. 

In noting Rova's role in innovatively developing the all-saxophone ensemble as "a regular and conceptually wide-ranging unit," The Penguin Guide to Jazz calls its music "a teeming cosmos of saxophone sounds" created by "deliberately eschewing conventional notions about swing [and] prodding at the boundaries of sound and space..." Likewise "Jazz: The Rough Guide" notes, "Highly inventive, eclectic and willing to experiment, Rova [is] arguably the most exciting of the saxophone quartets to emerge in the format's late '70s boom."