In the broader Southern California jazz scene, brass player Dan Rosenboom is both a well-established leader and an anchor for a community with far-flung interests and locales. In Long Beach, he leads a regular quartet gig at the Vine and recorded The Left Edge: Live at the Vine last year with pianist and keyboardist Joshua White, bassist Billy Mohler, and drummer Shawn Baltazor, cranking out over an hour of high-octane funk-rock jazz, mixing hard bop and late fusion into a crunchy groove. In the five years since what I’ll call Rosenboom’s dual statement of purpose, Absurd In the Anthropocene, a raucous meditation on this late stage we’re embroiled in, and Points On an Infinite Line, a blazing set with a group of longtime friends and collaborators, saxophonist Gavin Templeton, Mohler again on bass, and drummer Anthony Fung. Where Absurd In the Anthropocene showed Rosenboom pushing himself harder than he had before, opening his sound up to include a who’s who of regional players and bringing in Jeff Babko to produce, Points On an Infinite Line was recorded in a single, three-hour session, shining a light on the profound, sincere connective tissue between the quartet’s members. Both sets were, in their way, perfectly human, playing with a vulnerability that expressed the fear, confusion, and desperate hope of 2020. In the years since there have been plenty more albums recorded with different lineups, but nothing has hit like Coordinates, which—if there’s a shorthand for describing it—plays like a happy marriage of the two.
Rosenboom has never seemed like the kind of artist to stay in one musical space for long; even as his group Dr. MiNT was cranking out some of the most diabolical and seriously fun music on the scene, each album raised the stakes by incorporating more complex compositional/improvisational ideas. And yet, Rosenboom hasn’t merely raised the stakes on Coordinates, he seems to have pushed himself harder and further than ever. Coordinates is a tight 40 minutes, packed with brass canons, gorgeous string arrangements, snarling horns, crackling guitar and keyboards, and some outrageous solos. Again, the band’s stacked to the rafters. The core quartet is Rosenboom with guitarist Jake Vossler, bassist Jerry Watts, Jr., and drummer Caleb Dolister. Joshua White rotates through the piano/keyboard chair with Babko and Gloria Cheng, while Wade Culbreath and Petri Korpela trade off on percussion, Culbreath covering mallets on half the album, Korpela covering hand percussion, gongs, metallics, shakers, and shells on the other half. The winds and brass lineup includes Templeton, flautist Katisse Buckingham, altoist Nicole McCabe, Brian Walsh on contralto clarinet, Jon Stehney on bassoon and contrabasson, horn players Laura Brenes and Katie Faraudo, trombonists Steve Surminski, Ryan Dragon, and Steve Trapani, and Doug Tornquist on tuba. And then there are the strings: harpist Jacqueline Kerrod, violist Lauren Elizabeth Baba, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson on 5-string electric violin, and Michael Valerio on contrabass, backed by the Lyris Quartet, violinists Alyssa Park and Shalini Vijayan, Luke Maurer on viola, and cellist Timothy Loo.
About half the group recorded in Rosenboom’s studio in Long Beach, while the other half recorded their parts themselves or else in studio in studios in Burbank, CA, and at UCLA. The major difference from Absurd In the Anthropocene—and to be clear, this is not a knock on that record—is this one was produced and mixed by Rosenboom himself. Babko did an excellent job producing the previous album, with Justin Stanley mixing, but the difference I think comes in the specific vision Rosenboom has for the music. Of course, he’s been recording, mixing, and mastering for at least 15 years, his own records as well as dozens of others, so it really comes down to performing the intention. The record sounds incredible, without the (quite welcome, actually) details in the liner notes, you wouldn’t know parts were recorded remotely. The whole band sounds rich and deeply in sync—I’d say there’s a generosity in the way so many players give of themselves. After an opening statement of intent, the first two “Coordinates,” “Many Worlds, Many Dances” and “Apophis,” come rushing gloriously out of the speakers. A tonal breath is taken for “Josephine’s Dream,” which features the Lyris Quartet, Kerrod, and Valerio alongside Cheng’s piano and Stehney’s bassoon. An accomplished Hollywood studio musician, Rosenboom has a knack for shaping the arc of an album. The bend through the second half, from “Coordinate 4: Nemesis” to the finale “Coordinate 5: Hyperion,” is a knockout 20 minutes. Arguably, the most remarkable thing about Coordinates is how organic and unforced the whole thing sounds. Listening to the full album is an emotional journey that carries you along and risks vulnerability balanced with virtuoso performances. The result is a brilliantly bridged gap between technique and passion, a place where heart cooks brain while brain fries heart. It’s a space Rosenboom seems most comfortable, baring his soul with dazzling chops. What’s different now compared to then? Ultimately, it’s the group he’s assembled, the places his writing takes them all to, and truly the insane level he’s performing at—if your jaw doesn’t drop multiple times listening to this, I don’t know how to help you.
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