Daniel Rosenboom Quintet
Fire Keeper
****
There are few jazz records that seem suitable for a pyrotechnics show but trumpeter-composer-producer Daniel Rosenboom has accomplished such a feat with the debut of his new album on his new label, Orenda. The work is a wholly modern and frequently intimidating assault brimming with ferocity and enough guitar showboating to keep the lighters in the air. The first minute of the album is a little misleading. "Leaving Moscow" opens with Rosenboom's muted trumpet offering a languid modal dance but an unbridled boil soon follows and never lets up. Guitarist Alexander Noice rips into a headbanger's frenzy not long into the tune and returns throughout the album to the altar of shred. Saxophonist Gavin Templeton supplies a boisterous solo alongside Rosenboom's muted frenzy on the brushed-steel soul of "With Fire Eyes," while drummer Dan Schnelle, a young and swinging fixture in Los Angeles, seems equipped with steel sticks and a set of bottomless toms. The quintet has a grinding meticulousness that is admirable but could benefit from the occasional release. Spontaneity is replaced by an exacting approach to every drum roll and trumpet splat and the band is extremely tight in their execution of Rosenboom's ideas. This is not background music. It's a panoramic assault, soaked in aggression and fuzz, flinging jagged machismo in every direction. The listener has two options: put down what they're doing and soak it up, or run screaming for the hills.
Daniel Rosenboom @ DownBeat
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