Dan Rosenboom: Polarity

On this album, trumpeter Dan Rosenboom and his quartet engage in a free-wheeling session which comes off as a modern update of Wayne Shorter releases such as The All-Seeing Eye (Blue Note, 1966). He engages in playful genre-crossing and experimentation here which incorporate the sensibilities of hip-hop and ambient music as well as modern jazz.

The album's key track is the marathon opener, "The Age of Snakes" in which Rosenboom's trumpet and Gavin Templeton's alto saxophone lazily float over a bobbing beat laid down by pianist John Escreet, bassist Billy Mohler and drummer Damion Reid. Over the course of nineteen-plus minutes, the piece dreamily moves through an amorphous fabric of stretched horn lines, spiky piano chords, and loping grooves which are slowly infiltrated by wobbly electronics. The music sounds like a dreamlike cross between Robert Glasper, Tangerine Dream, and 1974 Miles Davis.

Nothing else on the album matches the headiness of "The Age of Snakes," but the rest of it is still very good. "War Money" and "Minotaur" boil with frantic energy while "A Paper Tiger" has the two horns flying over Escreet's jangling piano and the rhythm section's stomping drive. On "Ikigai" Rosenboom and Escreet leap and dart over heavy drum patterns and "On Summoning The Will" soars with a quietly noble calm. "Tidal Mirror" is a more ambient return to "The Age Of Snakes"' nebulous haze. Here Rosenboom's and Templeton's horns make soft ruptures through a thick carpet of synthesized sounds. All the musicians excel but Rosenboom is particularly expressive throughout and Reid's explosive drums give the music real power. Producer Justin Stanley also deserves kudos for his mixing work on "The Age of Snakes" and "Tidal Mirror"

Dan Rosenboom really carries on the exploratory traditions of musicians such as Wayne Shorter with this release. This music has an eye-opening sharpness and fire to it, and covers an impressive range of sounds. It is an outstanding album.

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