Rova’s Veteran Teamwork Allows Originality

Free improvisation is a bit like stepping off the edge of a cliff and hoping the wind currents will somehow provide enough lift to allow one to reach the ground safely. Doing it simultaneously with three other people has to be considered an act of sheer musical faith.

In the case of the saxophone quartet Rova, however, an ensemble that has been examining the outer fringes of improvisation since 1977, that faith largely pays off with some extraordinarily original performances.

Granted, the risks are mitigated somewhat by an approach to the music that moves seamlessly among freely improvised passages, structured segments and spontaneous ensemble inventions. But on Sunday night at the Knitting Factory Hollywood, Rova, making its first Los Angeles appearance since the early ‘90s, offered a series of works demonstrating how effective this kind of music can be in the hands of talented players.

Some of the pieces were based on composed material--”Diatribe Part Seven” and “The Draft”--and others appeared to be mostly improvisational. The Rova quartet--Bruce Ackley, soprano saxophone; Steve Adams (who replaced original member Andrew Voigt in 1988), alto saxophone; Larry Ochs, tenor saxophone; and Jon Raskin, baritone saxophone (although all double on other saxophones, as well)--approached them with a confident command of contrasting dissonance and consonance.

Rova’s great strength, in fact, was its collectivity. Although the compositions were not much more than functional, and the soloing offered some engaging if not especially superlative moments, the most gripping passages were those in which the ensemble took over and the music emerged with a constantly shifting, kaleidoscopic quality: a pair of players generating a rhythmic ostinato, while another played long tones, and a fourth triggered explosive bursts of solo sound; sudden shifts of timbre as the players shifted to different instrumentation--a lineup of three sopranino and one soprano saxophone, in one case; fascinating, instantly invented ensemble interaction, triggered by head nods and hand signals.

But the addition of former Captain Beefheart drummer John “Drumbo” French to the group’s intuitive interaction for a few numbers was not a wise decision. His rock orientation and limited dynamic palette never blended with Rova’s multilayered textures and rhythms.