Scott Rosenberg is a talented, moderately well-known reed instrumentalist and composer who has earned a reputation as one of the hardest working men in modern American improvisation. He first appeared on a recording of the Creative Music Orchestra in Oakland in 1995. A year later, he composed the majority of are, a critically respected series of partially improvised songs for a piano-led quartet, on which he also performed. In 1998 and 1999, he stood in on Bubble and Squeak and Spotted Dick, a pair of improvised sessions with guitarist John Shiurba and percussionist Gino Robair.

Around the same time, after moving from the Bay Area to the city by the lake, Chicago, he founded his own label, Barely Audible records. His first release on Barely Audible was IE (For Large Ensemble), easily his most well-received and well-known record to date. The composition demonstrated the potential of the budding reedist as a writer and performer. Created for a 27-piece ensemble, the album includes long, patience-testing (yet ultimately rewarding) numbers as well as quick, rambunctious ones.

Rosenberg hasn't composed anything up to this level since, but he's been plenty busy with other projects. In 2000, he recorded a schizophrenic, 99-track LP with Shiurba, called One Liners, and a duet with Anthony Braxton, called Compositions/Innovations 2000. He also found time to open his own small club in Chicago, where he performs along with a host of aspiring musicians on a regular basis. His most recent project is an experimental quartet entitled Rosenberg Skrontet. V: Solo Improvisations was issued in early 2001. ~ Kieran McCarthy, Rovi