As an artist you always look for situations which challenge you, make you strive to raise to their level of artistry and creativity. When you combine it with a long time relationship, as in the case with Vladimir Tarasov, George Cremaschi, and Georg Graewe, exceptional and surprising music happens. Sten Sandell is an equally gifted and creative musician and this quartet is a rare opportunity to work together. When a situation comes along where you can combine musicians of this caliber and sensibilities it enters into a dream come true where the sum of its parts will generate exciting ear expanding experiences for the musicians and the audience. All the members of this ensemble have unique approaches to improvisation expanding the language of their instruments along with unique ways of incorporating these concerns in their playing. This allows for fluidity of form and flow in the interaction’s between the players.

My relationships with Vladimir, George, Georg started in 1983 with Vladimir that started in on a Rova tour of the USSR and concerts in St Petersburg (Leningrad at the time), Vilnius, and the Riga Jazz Festival. Since then, Vladimir and I have worked together in a myriad of different projects including a trios recording with Matthew Goodheart and a quartet recording with in 2020 with Chris Brown and Jason Hoopes

George Cremaschi and in the 1990’s and he participated in the Rova Saxophone Quartet performance and recording celebrating the of 30th Anniversary John Coltrane’s composition of Ascension. This was the first performance in concert of the piece with the original instrumentations. He was a member of the Jon Raskin Quartet which released two recordings, “Jon Raskin Quartet” and “Up & Down, Sideways” along with Gino Robair and Liz Allbee. George and I had weekly online music sessions during the Covid Pandemic helping us through the long period of isolation.

I met Georg in the early nineties when Rova played in Koln at the Loft along with Frank Gratkowski but we didn’t get a chance to play together until Georg starting coming to Berkeley each year staring in 2000 to work at CNMAT. We started doing concerts when he was visiting in various formations and released a trio recording with Kjell Nordeson in 2009. It was recorded the NIR Studios in Oakland and live streamed on the internet through sfsound radio.