Dan Rosenboom: Polarity

Recently, Los Angeles-based trumpeter Dan Rosenboom has been experimenting with somewhat freer and edgier realms of improvisation, giving doomy metal influences a go on Trio Subliminal 2 (Orenda Records, 2022), and indulging high-energy trio interplay with plenty of delay effects and other sonic manipulation on Refraction (Orenda Records, 2021). Not to mention the opulent The Complete Boom Sessions (Orenda Records, 2022), which captured over 400-minutes, live to tape, recorded over five gigs at one of Los Angeles' premiere hubs for creative music, ETA in Highland Park. Now Polarity, a record with equally high stakes, as Rosenboom explores a range of idioms including hip-hop, modern jazz, free jazz and bop with a powerful quintet of pianist John Escreet, bassist Billy Mohler, saxophonist Gavin Templeton and drummer Damion Reid.

For the record, Rosenboom partnered-up with producer Justin Stanley, whose curriculum vitae includes collaborations with such chart-topping artists as Prince and Beck, among others. Indeed, one could argue that there is a more through-designed quality to the sonic landscapes presented on Polarity. Most notably, in the opening twenty-minute cut, "The Age Of Snakes," with its boomy beat character developing momentum over loops of lush atmospheric measures, before the band lets loose and opens the structure up to a storm of percussion and free improv. There is psychedelia in there, too, with synthesizer solos, pad-spreads and echoey trumpet lines infusing a particularly hypnotizing note into the mix.

On the subsequent seven-track portion of the album, the music is presented in a more traditional guise, with fierce, drum-rich improvisation and forward-pushing unison lines on "A Paper Tiger," some mid-tempo grooving on "Walking Shadows" and another up-tempo swinger with "War Money," a performance which gushes with energy and dexterous playing by all involved. The ballad "On Summoning The Will" captures Rosenboom and co. in a particularly serene mood. The trumpet's unbothered sustain and full-bodied tone, in combination with the song's wistful melody, sounds like something out of the Kenny Wheeler songbook, but wrapped in the sunny aura of the West Coast rather than Wheeler's foreboding shades.

"Ikigai"'s heavy on-beat grounds the group in a blasting groove from which each musician departs in different directions, before "Tidal Mirror" brings back some of the previously explored psychedelia. The album closes with "Minotaur," another explosive swing piece which gives Templeton the spotlight to let his devoutly vibrating baritone saxophone shine. It is the kind of deeply satisfying tune which might grab a director's attention for the possible signature jingle of a series, the way Mel Young's "The Killer" did for Archer-creator Adam Reed. An inspired session from a trumpeter whose voice seems to become more idiosyncratic with every release.