Alex Riva

*2023 stock* "Railing backstage at his musicians between sets, drummer and big band leader Buddy Rich once declared, “There’s no sound in flutes. All I hear is noise!” It’s unclear if Alex Riva ever listened to these covertly made recordings of Rich chewing out his band. But if he had, Rich’s words certainly could have been the rallying cry on Riva’s new solo CD, Solos and More, recorded in Bangalore, India in 2019. Riva plays a wide variety of plastic recorders, the bane of many parents worldwide as they struggle to withstand the sheer torture of hearing their offspring struggle through horribly mangled versions of “All My Little Ducklings” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” as assigned for homework in their early music school courses. No! Riva embraces this and dives headlong into those very qualities which might make the recorder certainly one of the most detested musical instruments of all time. In a way, Riva has managed to vindicate Rich’s dictum of there only being noise in flutes. But on Solos and More what a glorious noise it is." - Jason Kahn