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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."

Simply put, As Was  is a masterpiece of American creative music.  These huge quartet recordings from the band's first incarnation with Andrew Voigt were first issued on Larry Ochs and Henry Kaiser's legendary Metalanguage label in '1981, and have never been previously available on CD.

Bay Area ROVA continue to make great music; they are the finest, most adventurous saxophone quartet in the biz.  This record features some of their most memorable compositions, including the superb, r&b inflected Paint Another Take Of The Shootpop, dedicated to Olivier Messiaen and Otis Redding, and "Daredevils," which Larry Ochs describes as "...a little hit of the circus."

As Was  has been remastered and resequenced from original tapes by Rova's Larry Ochs.  This cd also restores the swank original cover to the form it was initially envisioned (when printed for the LP is didn't turn out the way the group wanted it to...).

This one record shows how expansive and exciting the sometimes mundane saxophone quartet format can be, when deployed with the right combination of care and spunk.

Or- per the original liner notes "... when ROVA plays live, our sound fills the room.  We suggest playing this record at a volume that fills your listening space."--- Larry Ochs (original liner notes, 1981)

5 tracks in 45+ minutes

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