Rova do more than simply pay tribute. The quartet's members build on their own work in structured improvisation, incorporate other methods of organization - from graphic scores to conventional notation - and expand their palette from the saxophone quartet to include a string quartet and an electric power trio. Extending the possibilities of large-ensemble improvisation, the combined groups create music of both depth and an ever changing surface, the fruit of both intense commitment and a highly creative, heterodox methodology. Like previous Rova expansions, it achieves complex music that both requires and rewards active listening.
Each of the three extended pieces here includes a high degree of improvisation while embodying different compositional principles, the first and third (Nothing Stopped / But a Future and Contours of the Glass Head) employing conduction, the second graphic notation and simultaneity.
