[1] The name "Rova" is an acronym formed from the last initials of the founding members: Jon Raskin [de], Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt, and Bruce Ackley.
When Voigt left in 1988, he was replaced by Steve Adams, but the group did not change the acronym.
[2] The quartet's music was inspired by a broad spectrum of influences, such as John Cage, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Charles Ives, Edgard Varése, and Olivier Messiaen.
[3] Rova's tour of the Soviet Union in 1983 was filmed and shown on PBS.
[2] In noting Rova's role in 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...." 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 1970s boom.