Rova Saxophone Quartet

Favorite Street is the record on which the Rova Saxophone Quartet turned to the music of Steve Lacy, seven of his compositions arranged by the members themselves and recorded in Milan for Black Saint in November 1983. The quartet of Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt and Bruce Ackley had already been playing Lacy's tunes on tour that year, and two of them appear on their live record from the Soviet Union and Romania. Here the whole programme comes from one songbook, played by four horns with no rhythm section.

The quartet recorded at Barigozzi Studio in Milan on November 15, 16 and 17, 1983, with Giovanni Bonandrini producing. Raskin plays baritone and alto saxophone and B flat clarinet, Ochs tenor and sopranino, Voigt alto, soprano and sopranino saxophone and flute, and Ackley soprano saxophone and B flat clarinet. Ochs arranged four of the seven pieces: The Throes, Undone, Moon and the closing Snips. Voigt arranged the opener The Dumps, which lasts barely two minutes. Raskin took Sidelines, and Ackley the longest track, Beeline, at ten and a half minutes. Moon, close to ten minutes, is the other extended reading. Sidelines and The Throes had been recorded in June 1983 in Moscow, Riga and Craiova for Saxophone Diplomacy, issued by hat Hut in 1985, so the Milan session catches the arrangements a few months later in a studio.

This is the Black Saint CD 120076-2 of the album first released on LP in 1984 as BSR 0076.