Sonic Spotlight: Rob Foster

HOMETOWN: Detroit

DAY JOB: Professor of music, Augusta State University (directs the jazz ensembles)

PLAYS: Saxophone, flute (including the shakuhachi), clarinet, keyboard

BANDS: Mood Indigo, Pulsar, Ütaké

PERFORMED WITH: Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, James Newton, Charlie Haden, Art Lande, John Denver, Mitch Ryder, the Temptations, The Four Tops, Bob Hope, the Augusta Symphony and Ed Turner & Number 9

PRE-SHOW RITUAL: "Get centered, get focused and get prepared mentally, emotionally and physically."

MEMORABLE CONCERT ATTENDED: Nguyen Le, Jaguar Student Activities Center ballroom, Augusta State University, 2006. "He had a quartet with some just great musicians. ... There were great compositions; but then within those, the improvisation that took place was just amazing."

FAVORITE MOVIES: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, Young Frankenstein

MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE: Echo Canyon, N.M. "We went in the middle of the night, so nobody else was out there, and then there's just a chorus of millions of crickets. And so I was just kind of playing flute out there, and you could see all the stars; the sky was really, really clear out there. And then off in the distance, there was a coyote that would just howl along with me once in a while."

FAVORITE ALBUMS: Kaoru Kakizakai's Koten Shakuhachi and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Transition

UPCOMING GIG: Mr. Foster and Paul Roberts will play from 6:30-8 p.m. Friday on the Augusta Canal, as part of the Moonlight Music Cruise series; $24