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The Art of Improvisation Subject: Rova Saxophone Quartet Discipline: Music

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EDUCATOR GUIDE Story Theme: The Art of Improvisation Subject: Rova Saxophone Quartet Discipline: Music SECTION I - OVERVIEW ......................................................................................................................2 SECTION II – CONTENT/CONTEXT ..................................................................................................3 SECTION III - RESOURCES ..................................................................................................................5 SECTION IV – VOCABULARY ............................................................................................................7 SECTION V – ENGAGING WITH SPARK...........................................................................................8 SECTION VI – ENGAGING WITH SPARK – ADVANCED............................................................ 12 Rova Saxophone Quartet member Lawrence Ochs plays during rehearsal. Still image from SPARK story, February 2004. SECTION I - OVERVIEW EPISODE THEME INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES The Art of Improvisation To introduce students to the ideas of free jazz through listening, playing and discussion SUBJECT To provide context for the understanding of Rova Saxophone Quartet improvisation in music and beyond To inspire students towards risk-taking in the GRADE RANGES creative process K-12 & Post-secondary CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS EQUIPMENT NEEDED Visual Arts & Language Arts SPARK story “The Art of Improvisation” about the Rova Saxophone Quartet. Computer with Internet access, navigation software, OBJECTIVE speakers and a sounds card, printer To introduce students to the concepts and practice of Cassette player, CD player, or computer audio improvisation in music and other creative artforms program through the works and history of the Rova Saxophone Quartet MATERIALS NEEDED STORY SYNOPSIS Access to libraries with up-to-date collections of In “The Art of Improvisation,” SPARK gets an periodicals, books, and research papers insider’s look at the Rova Saxophone Quartet, a Pencils, pens, and paper vanguard musical group that has improvised its way along the cutting edge of the music and sound art scene for 25 years. SPARK joins the members of INTELLIGENCES ADDRESSED this remarkable group for their anniversary Bodily-Kinesthetic - control of one's own body, celebration, with a new take on works by free jazz control in handling objects saxophonist Steve Lacy. Interpersonal - awareness of others' feelings, emotions, goals, motivations Intrapersonal - awareness of one's own feelings, INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES emotions, goals, motivations Group oral discussion, review and analysis, Spatial - ability to manipulate and create mental including peer review and aesthetic valuing images in order to solve problems Teacher-guided instruction, including Logical-Mathematical - ability to detect patterns, demonstration and guidance reason deductively, think logically Hands-on individual projects in which students work independently Hands-on group projects in which students assist See more information on and support one another Multiple Intelligences at Critical reflection on personal expressions and how www.kqed.org/spark/education. they are seen and received by others 2 SPARK Educator Guide – Rova Saxophone Quartet SECTION II – CONTENT/CONTEXT CONTENT OVERVIEW In “The Art of Improvisation,” Spark gets an insider’s Trio, the first Soviet jazz group to appear in the US. look at the Rova Saxophone Quartet, a vanguard The trio performed with the Rova Saxophone Quartet musical group that has improvised its way along the at its first Pre-Echoes series of collaborative events, cutting edge of the music scene for 25 years. Spark which would later include concerts with Anthony joins the members of this remarkable group along Braxton, John Zorn, Terry Riley and others. with their international musical guests for their anniversary celebration, with a new take on works by free jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy. The Rova Saxophone Quartet was founded in the Bay Area in October, 1977 by Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt and Bruce Ackley, and performed its first concert at the third annual Free Music Festival at Mills College in Oakland in 1978. The ensemble draws on the work of a broad range of musicians, including avant-garde composers Charles Ives, Edgard Varese, Olivier Messiaen, and John Cage as well as free jazz musicians John Coltrane, Anthony Rova Saxophone Quartet members Steve Adams (left) Braxton, Steve Lacy, and Ornette Coleman. Rova and Larry Ochs rehearse for their 25th anniversary composes new material, records, and tours, often performance. Still image from SPARK story, June 2003. collaborating with like-minded colleagues such as guitarist Henry Kaiser and Italian percussionist Andrea Centazzo. Members of the quartet have been In 1999, Rova began presenting two annual events in commissioned to write music by both Meet the the San Francisco Bay Area: New Music on the Composer/Commissioning Music USA and Chamber Mountain, which hosts several acts outdoors at Music America, which has commissioned 20 works Mount Tamalpais every September; and Rovate, from Rova over the years. In August, 1988, founding which features special collaborations between Rova member Andrew Voigt left the quartet and was and such guest artists as Sam Rivers, Wadada Leo replaced by Steve Adams, formerly with the Boston- Smith, Gerry Hemingway, Satoko Fujii and Nels based Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet. Cline as well as commissioning up-and-coming local composers to write new music for Rova. Early in its history, Rova performed both at the Vancouver New Music Society (1978) and the Moers International Festival of New Jazz in Germany (1979). Over the next few years Rova played to audiences hroughout North America and Europe, and in 1983 became the first new music group from the US to tour the Soviet Union. The tour was documented in a film, "Saxophone Diplomacy," which originally aired on PBS. Rova returned to the USSR again in November 1989 and released a CD titled This Time We Are Both. In 1986, the quartet hosted the Ganelin 3 SPARK Educator Guide – Rova Saxophone Quartet THE BIG PICTURE “In the '60s, we all went into revolutionary Free jazz marked a radical departure from previous mode, and abandoned all precepts (melody, styles, since typically, a soloist does not have to harmony, rhythm and form), taking the follow any progression or structure but rather is music to the brink of destruction, and encouraged to go in an unpredictable direction. In afterwards returning to completely addition, often two soloists will play different, refreshed traditional limits (melody, dissonant solos simultaneously. harmony, rhythm and form), but not defensively, only driven by the search for When Coleman and others were debuting this type of freedom, independence (interdependence music, musicians, critics, and audiences--even those really, jazz being collective) and creative that were most sophisticated at the time--questioned invention, no defense being necessary.” whether it was music at all. In fact, free jazz --Steve Lacy, Findings: My Experience With demands of its audience a different kind of listening, the Soprano Saxophone. bringing to the forefront the listener's expectations of a piece of music. Free jazz is an experimental movement in jazz that began in the early 1960s and continues to this day. Free jazz musicians often put together ensembles Sometimes called "avant-garde," free jazz remains a composed of instrument groupings that were controversial and mostly underground style, unconventional--sometimes radically so. The influencing much mainstream jazz, while often being foundation of more traditional jazz ensembles is the ignored or dismissed as a viable style. Free jazz combination of horns, piano, upright bass, and dispenses with many of the rules of pitch, rhythm, drums. Some musicians experimenting with free jazz and development, though it need not be atonal or dispense with this format in the search of new sounds lack a steady pulse. Some free jazz musicians, such and musical possibilities, sometimes omitting the as the Bay Area's Pharoah Sanders, have even had piano or the drums, other times doubling and tripling very popular records in the style. the number of same instruments. Alto saxophone player Ornette Coleman is generally The success of a free jazz performance can be credited with introducing free jazz to audiences and measured by the musicianship and imagination of the critics when, in 1959, he brought his quartet from performers, how colorful the music is, and whether it Texas to do a two week stint at New York's Five Spot seems logical or merely random. Success in a free jazz club. The style originated, however, with a jazz performance can also be gauged by the extent of number of performers, including Cecil Taylor, Sun effective collaboration between the musicians. This Ra, and John Coltrane. type of teamwork–defined by experience, good communication, close listening, and mutual respect– is critical to the success of any collaborative venture, especially an artistic one in which all performers take risks. Rova member Bruce Ackley giving direction during a rehearsal. Still image from SPARK story, May 2003. 4 SPARK Educator Guide – Rova Saxophone Quartet SECTION III - RESOURCES TEXTS MEDIA Bailey, Derek. Improvisation: Its Nature and Rova Saxophone Quartet, Saxophone Diplomacy: Practice in Music. Cambridge, MA: DaCapo Press, Live in Russia, Latvia, Romania, hatART, June 1983. 1993. Rova Saxophone Quartet,
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