Roland began studying classical and jazz clarinet at age 9 under the tutelage of his Grandfather, the renowned virtuoso clarinetist and conductor, Lawrence Denton. At 14 he formed a vocal group and produced his first vinyl as Roland Young and the Ve [+]Roland began studying classical and jazz clarinet at age 9 under the tutelage of his Grandfather, the renowned virtuoso clarinetist and conductor, Lawrence Denton. At 14 he formed a vocal group and produced his first vinyl as Roland Young and the Velveteers. The following year he formed an improvising jazz woodwind trio with Roland on bass clarinet and two high school classmates, one on alto saxophone and one on baritone saxophone. He performed with both his vocal and woodwind groups at local Kansas City venues.
After high school Roland joined the U.S. Navy. With his clarinet faithfully by his side he would play on the ship at night as he sailed through out the Pacific on various military assignments. Upon his discharge from the Navy he settled in San Francisco, California. It was the 1960s and creativity and exploration permeated all aspects of his life. It was during this period that Roland began playing saxophone and exploring sounds from the infinite source. Africa, Asia, Europe, and Native America became the source material, space and silence became the structure, and composing, improvising and the continued development of instrumental facility became the tasks.
During this period Roland also became a top rated disc jockey on the premier San Francisco underground FM radio station, KSAN. He was one of the originators of the mix of musical genres segued in seamless flows and undulations of sounds. Demonstrating the oneness of music and the fallacy of strict musical categories.
He was fired from KSAN for his radical political commentaries on the hot social issues of the day. After a stint at radio station KMPX, also in San Francisco, Roland then joined the first free speech listener-sponsored radio station in the U.S., KPFA in Berkeley. It was during this period that he perfected his concept of eclectic cross-genre universal acoustic and electronic music mixes. He, simultaneously, incorporated this concept into his own music compositions. This concept has become the integral aspect and defining characteristic of his music.
Roland formed the acoustic/electronic ensemble Infinite Sound and they recorded a ground breaking synthesizes of Jazz, Chamber, and Electronic music in 1974 for 1750 Arch Records entitled Infinite Sound.
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