Daniel Rosenboom's trumpet and electronics tour de force Evolution captures all the gravity of '70s prog rock with a dramatic flair of Freddy Mercury-proportions. If the sampled electric guitar intro doesn't get your adrenaline going, time to holdup a little mirror in front of your mouth—are you breathing? Seriously, Rosenboom goes for the jugular both rhythmically and melodically, running through time signatures like a box of Kleenex at an AA meeting. It makes me wonder what this would sound like as a concerto for trumpet, ditching the electronics for a live death metal band. And why not? The piece already comes with the obligatory three-movement construction. Someone get Bolt Thrower on the phone.
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Featuring Daniel Rosenboom on trumpet & electronics, Derrick Spiva, Jr. om piano, Jake Vossler on electric guitar, Orest Balaban on electric bass, Michael Pisaro on sine-tones, Randy Gloss on tabla, Austin Wrinkle on drums & tabla and Jacqeline Humbert - voice. Compositions by Rosenboom, Nick Didkovsky, Vinny Golia Derrick Spiva, Robert Lax and Michael Pisaro. "Evolution" is a tight, progressive work for intricate trumpet, electric guitar and electric bass played at breakneck speed with midi-drum machine programmed to play these difficult parts. It is as if Nancarrow wrote for a prog/jazz/rock band. "Conflict and Confluence" prog, metal and fusion sounds into an unlikely and successful hybrid that is unlike anything I've heard before. As the el. guitar, bass and drums lock in play their lines together the trumpet plays precise counterpoint with/against them. Vinny Golia's "39.1 Degrees Celsius" is a solo trumpet work for mutated trumpet sounds, well played by Mr. Rosenboom. "Zones of Coherence" is again a solo trumpet work for layers on intricate and twisted trumpet sounds. As this piece evolves the layers of trumpet parts swim around one another with occasional buzzing echo-plexed flurries. Mr. Spiva's "Twenty-Seven" features samples sitar, complex tabla-fueled rhythms and spectacular trumpet soloing. Quite similar to John Mayer's later Indo-Jazz Fusion bands. Mr. Pisaro's "Every Night (Harmony Series 12C)" features distant drones floating in space, patience is required to observe the nuances of each drone as it sails by. "Music for Unstable Circuits" sounds like they are using an old fashioned computer with old science fiction-like sounds erupting in waves around the echoed trumpet lines. It is alien sounding and quite mesmerizing. The final piece is the title track and it was composed by Nick Didkovsky, leader of local prog sensation, Doctor Nerve. It does have that great, feisty rocking groove with some great trumpet and prog/metal guitar soloing. 'Bloodier, Mean Son" is an anagram for Daniel Rosenboom's name and is perhaps the most surprising (and great) disc we've heard from Nine Winds. - BLG
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