The international Aros sextet is the brainchild of the British/Canadian tenor saxophonist Rob Armus and the Austrian pianist Marion von Tilzer. One half of the founding members represents impro jazz while the other half has a high profile in contemporary composed music and soundtracks. It’s a combination that characterizes the dense, varied and, most of all, rhythmic sound of Aros, a sound that doesn’t only unify jazz, classical music and improv, but also styles like the tango. The self titled debut album was released in 2001 and was followed by a second: the eclectic Train Song. After a concert in the Amsterdam Bimhuis NRC Handelsblad remarked that Aros ‘is one of the few groups that succeed effortlessly in mixing jazz and contemporary, composed music without getting tangled up in pretentious Third Stream bombast or sterile, highbrow doodling’.
