Dan Rosenboom is an LA-based trumpeter/composer/bandleader/producer/record label impresario whose records we’ve profiled plenty of times on this space already. But the last time was back in 2016 when Book of Storms was the new release. It’s not like he took a sabbatical over the succeeding four years; here are a list of groups he’s been involved with since that time:
Rosenboom’s influences run the gamut of styles — electric Miles, Ornette, Wadada Leo Smith, Zappa, Squarepusher, etc. — but the one crucial element shared by all of them — and Rosenboom — is a deep commitment to unfettered improvisation. He brings it all to bear on his first release in about four years, Absurd In the Anthropocene.
For his return to his solo work, Dan Rosenboom hands over the producer reins to noted keyboard whiz Jeff Babko, and brings into the studio a revolving cast of upper-crust musicians, as only Rosenboom, Babko and saxophonist Gavin Templeton are the ones who appear on virtually every track. Rosenboom’s and Babko’s Steely Dan-esque approach of plugging in the right players for the right songs not only gives them a whole lot of flexibility in how the songs are played but makes each performance an entity onto itself. Meaning, this album doesn’t ever wear out its welcome.
“Mr. Lizard Said” has that spaciousness that gives everyone room to breathe and thrive. When Rosenboom tears off into his own solo, he’s commanding all attention with searing, bop-rooted lines that anchors the song firmly in the jazz tradition, never mind Babko’s synth bass or keyboards, which actually serve to enhance the freewheeling aesthetic. But Rosenboom isn’t getting bogged down by idioms, either; with Tim Conley’s roaring guitar, “Lemonade” is impulsive over an arduous melody masquerading as a hard rock song. “Obsidian Butterfly” is also a heavier track, thanks to the dual, overdriven guitars of Alexander Noice and Jake Vossler, with Templeton taking on a brawnier stance on baritone sax.
Templeton pairs with Rosenboom over modern jazzy lines for “Pushed To The Edge of Ideas by Dispassionate Bias-Algorithm Bots,” where no intrusion by a fuzzy bass or cosmic keyboards can shake off the straight-ahead core of the song; Dan Rosenboom’s crisp asides see to that. His cornet gets lyrical and a little melancholy for the hushed “Still,” an esoteric, modern ballad in the mold of Michael Brecker. “Heliopteryx,” on the other hand, invokes the spirit of the Brecker Brothers, except a little more off-kilter than the Brothers would attempt. Check out Rosenboom’s machine-gun raspberries in the middle of his otherworldly solo. Templeton has a tall order just to match that intensity in his following solo, but he manages.
Tim Lefebvre’s bass and Zach Danziger’s drums establish a beefy, no-nonsense funk strut for “Nebulounge” and aside from some electronic whooshes from Babko, it’s basically Rosenboom getting down with a saucy muted trumpet and Templeton with his alto sax. Drumming hero Vinnie Colaiuta and sax star Dave Binney make good on the reputations during “Apes In Rapture,” which is supplemented by a four-piece horn section that adds organic heft to the arrangements on an intricately composed tune.
Babko gets his turn to shine with an electric piano run over drummer Gary Novak’s thrashing on the “Green Moon.” Novak also the driving force behind “Drowning On The High Ground,” a modern jazz song that sits entrancingly between early-sixties Ornette and mid-sixties Miles with Babko’s early-seventies Rhodes sounds tossed in for that just-right enhancement.
Come to think of it, everything just ‘just right’ on Absurd In The Anthropocene. The right mixture of the past and future, acoustic and electric, familiar and exotic. Dan Rosenboom has the right influences and just as importantly, knows how to distill them.
Absurd In The Anthropocene drops on January 31, 2020 through Gearbox Records.
- Christian Marien Quartett – ‘How Long Is Now’ (2024) - April 18, 2024
- Dave Douglas, feat. James Brandon Lewis – ‘Gifts’ (2024) - April 11, 2024
- Thollem – ‘Worlds In A Life, Two’ (2024) - April 8, 2024
