For trumpeter-composer-producer Dan Rosenboom, there are no boundaries when it comes to making music. Genre distinctions are meaningless, unusual combinations of instruments are a hallmark, and sources of inspiration are as numerous as the stars. His expansive and explosive new album Coordinates is a multi-faceted exploration of self through the lenses of found numerical patterns, cosmic temporal imagination, orchestrational possibility, and true friendship. It spans the stylistic universe from progressive jazz to metal, world, symphonic, and chamber music sensibilities and features 28 virtuoso musicians from the Los Angeles jazz scene and Hollywood film recording studios. Through an idiosyncratic approach to rhythm and complex unfolding compositions, Rosenboom presents a programmatic concept album that is as sonically rich as it is emotionally riveting.
"Rosenboom at his toughest and most colorful, busting the walls to find grandeur in the collapse of modernity and opening cracks into the corners of the soul."
–Greg Burk, MetalJazz
The title Coordinates reveals the origin of the compositions at the heart of this new album. Throughout his life, Rosenboom has felt an almost mystical connection to the numbers in the world around us. “Coordinates really started as a game,” says Rosenboom, “a challenge for myself to make compelling music out of a series of “found” numbers. These numbers, a series of coordinates that flashed across the screen in a favorite science fiction show, gave me the idea to lay out a grid of time signatures like a game board and to see if I could make those metric relationships groove.” Using these numbers to create the rhythmic frameworks for a series of five pieces, Rosenboom embarked on what would ultimately become a four-year journey in writing and production. Rosenboom continues, “Each piece is an exploration through sound, investigating different moods and aspects of my own persona and imagination - coordinates of being, so to speak. As I wrote and produced this album, I imagined each as a sort of ritual dance from an unknown civilization, somewhere among the stars.”
Coordinates bounces and weaves with a rhythmic language that feels as connected to Balkan dance music as to Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messaien. The orchestration is lush and varied, as Rosenboom brings friends from two worlds together to create a distinct sound, with A-list Hollywood strings, brass and percussion, as well as virtuoso soloists from the vibrant LA jazz scene.
Once the compositions were complete, Rosenboom spent over a year recording and producing Coordinates. Guitarist Jake Vossler, bassist Jerry Watts Jr., and drummer Caleb Dolister, who have all been frequent collaborators with Rosenboom, acted as co-producers and contributed multiple workshops and recording sessions to shape tones, phrasing, stylistic ideas, and to sculpt each piece into its final form. As hard-hitting as Coordinates can be, Rosenboom achieves his varied and transportive sound through primarily acoustic orchestration. By combining guitars and bass with instruments like Wade Culbreath’s vibraphone and 5-octave marimba and Gloria Cheng’s concert grand piano, Rosenboom creates a composite core to the sound that is both intriguing and unusual. Two of his most epic compositions, "Coordinate 3" and "Coordinate 5," include orchestral brass with horn players Laura Brenes and Katie Faraudo, trombonists Steve Suminski, Ryan Dragon and Steve Trapani, and tubist Doug Tornquist. He also brings in strings, featuring The Lyris Quartet with violinists Alyssa Park and Shalini Vijayan, violist Luke Maurer, and cellist Timothy Loo, as well as legendary contrabassist Michael Valerio. A remarkable host of Rosenboom’s friends appear as guest soloists across the project, including Jacqueline Kerrod (harp), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (electric 5-String violin), Lauren Elizabeth Baba (viola), Nicole McCabe (alto saxophone), Katisse Buckingham (flutes), Joshua White (piano), Gavin Templeton (baritone saxophone), Brian Walsh (contralto clarinet), Ryan Dragon (trombone), and Jon Stehney (bassoon and contrabassoon). All-star keyboardist Jeff Babko and A-list multi-percussionist Petri Korpela both augment the sound with character and personality.
For Dan Rosenboom, Coordinates represents a high-water mark as a composer and producer. Beyond the wide array of colleagues and stylistic influences, this music is his most compositionally adventurous work to date. He says, “Coordinates is a far-reaching exploration of different sound-worlds, styles, rhythms, and personalities. It feels grounded in natural and cosmic proportionality and mathematical magic. It is both highly personal and otherworldly.” Dan Rosenboom’s Coordinates presents a refined vision from one of Los Angeles’s most creative voices, and something truly unique in the modern musical landscape.