Foster records music CD

Dr. Rob Foster

Inventing a title for his recently released CD, How’s That, was easy for Dr. Robert Foster, associate professor of music. “Occasionally, people who knew that I was working on a CD would ask, so Rob, how’s that CD going?” says Dr. Foster. “So that’s how I came up with the name.”

Dr. Foster plays tenor and soprano saxophones, flute, piccolo, and bass flute on the CD. He says that making the disc was a way to document where he was, artistically, at the time.

The CD mostly features music by Dr. Foster and the Russian Dragon Band from Colorado. The band was founded in 1988 by pianist and drummer Art Lande, guitarist Khabu-Doug Young, and bassist Dwight Kilian. Percussionist Erik Hargrove, who has been with James Brown’s band for the last several years, joined the RDB for the making of the CD. Dr. Foster began playing with the group in the early 1990s when he lived out West.

“Like an author might write a book and put it into print, I had a lot of music I had written and performed with these musicians at various times, and it seemed like the right thing to do,” he says. “We enjoy playing music with each other a lot. It’s interactive musically. Recording the CD was the closest we came to catching the essence of it and documenting it.”

Dr. Foster was invited by Masani, host of Georgia Public Radio’s The Jazz Spot, to do an interview and performance featuring his CD last month. Masani has been playing cuts from Dr. Foster’s CD since February. The interview and performance will air Friday, May 7.

For the design of the CD, Dr. Foster had help from ASU faculty. The liner notes were written by Dr. Michael Schwartz, professor of art history. The photography was shot by Jennifer Onofrio, associate professor of art.

Dr. Schwartz writes in the liner notes that the RDB, “has built a large, varied and colorful repertoire of original pieces, plus unique arrangements of jazz standards, all characterized by a flexibility of pulse (‘rushin’-draggin’), the nuanced use of space and texture, and unbridled drive.”

The CD can be purchased at Borders or can be ordered through www.howsthatcd.com or www.hylozoicmusic.com.

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