THE DANIEL ROSENBOOM QUINTET

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Fire Keeper is NOW AVAILABLE from iTunes, Bandcamp, and Orenda Records!

"Complex and excitingFire Keeper burns, lurches, and leaps with intelligent virtuosity and a breathtaking sense of ensemble cohesion. This might be where jazz is heading—so strap in and enjoy the ride."
All About Jazz

"A wholly modern and frequently intimidating assault brimming with ferocity... This is not background music. It's a panoramic assault soaked in aggression and fuzz, flinging jagged machismo in every direction."
DownBeat Magazine

"In his quintet, [Rosenboom] has fashioned something entirely new from wildly diverse precedents like the music of Ornette Coleman, Balkan-folk, heavy-metal, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra... At times the band reminded me of Ornette’s Prime Time playing at a Bulgarian rave. The liberal dosage of odd-meters and compound meters also evoked the spirit of Mahavishnu, but there was also a splash of (I swear to god) Black Sabbath tossed in for good measure... Rosenboom has a warm, gorgeous tone...imagine Freddie Hubbard gigging with Henry Threadgill in a Slavic mashup group, and you get the idea."
NBC San Diego

The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet is an electrifying ensemble that brings together some of the Los Angeles creative music scene's most distinctive instrumental voices.

Daniel Rosenboom – Trumpet, Piccolo Trumpet, and Flugelhorn
Gavin Templeton – Saxophones, Flute, and Bass Clarinet
Alexander Noice – Electric Guitar and FX
Kai Kurosawa – Bear Trax and FX
Dan Schnelle – Drums

Their debut album, Fire Keeper, introduces a new brand of American music, unbound by genre or stylistic idiom. The quintet seamlessly blends elements of jazz, progressive and experimental rock, electronic music, blues, grunge, and contemporary classical music into an unprecedented sound that is fiery, grooving, intelligent and exciting. The band rocks hard, but flies with the freedom of inspired jazz. The sound is fresh yet grounded, and for all its brazen metal edge, this is joyous music.

In 2014, The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet made its major festival debuts at the world renowned Monterey Jazz Festival and Los Angeles' Angel City Jazz Festival where they were met with hoots, hollers, and full-house standing ovations. After a successful album release and touring, the band is back in the workshop preparing a whole new batch of music, and organizing touring and recording for 2015.
 

2014 Tour Dates:

September 28 - Angel City Jazz Festival (Los Angeles, CA)
September 24 - Bakersfield Jazz Workshop (Bakersfield, CA)
September 21 - Monterrey Jazz Festival (Monterey, CA)
September 19 - Ampersand (Reno, NV)
September 19 - Clinic at the University of Nevada, Reno
September 17 - The Starday Tavern (Portland, OR)

September 16 - The Royal Room (Seattle, WA)
September 14 - SOhO (Santa Barbara, CA)

August 23 - LA Jazz Collective Festival @ Blue Whale (Los Angeles, CA)
June 29 - Blue Whale (Los Angeles, CA)
March 30 - Blue Whale (Los Angeles, CA)
March 22 - 
Duende (Oakland, CA)
March 18
- Jazz at the CAP (Los Angeles, CA)
March 13 -
The Loft at UCSD (San Diego, CA)


Fire Keeper Reviews

****4 STARS**** from DownBeat Magazine
****4.5 STARS**** from Sydney Morning Herald

DownBeat Magazine
"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...a wholly modern and frequently intimidating assault brimming with ferocity...The quintet has a grinding meticulousness...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."
— Sean J. O'Connell, DownBeat Magazine 

All About Jazz
"Complex and excitingFire Keeper burns, lurches, and leaps with intelligent virtuosity and a breathtaking sense of ensemble cohesion. This might be where jazz is heading—so strap in and enjoy the ride."
— Robert Bush, All About Jazz

LA Times
"Veering between knotty jazz, prog rock and metal, is a trumpeter determined to go his own way...the imagination on display generates plenty of heat."
— Chris Barton, LA Times

Sydney Morning Herald
"A more innovative approach has been to place jazzy improvising within a rock aesthetic. The quintet, led by Los Angeles' trumpeter Daniel Rosenboom, is at the pinnacle of this approach, as heard on the new Fire Keeper opus. Rosenboom's music filmically plays with moods, while reaching peaks of energy in which rhythmically complex compositions and arresting improvising sit atop the thundering drama of rock."
— John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald

Something Else Reviews
"We’ve firmly established a few things about Daniel Rosenboom from his Best of 2013 release Book of Omens: he’s a fearless composer, bandleader, and trumpet player who lunges headfirst into the frontiers of modern progressive jazz, making it his mission to craft something that’s both fresh and immediate. What we establish from his follow-up LP Fire Keeper is that his pursuit of what’s beyond that frontier doesn’t ever let up."
— S. Victor Aaron, Something Else Reviews

Nextbop
"Fire Keeper, marches forward with a certain kind of relentlessness. It's definitely the kind of rambunctious, inventive kind of music that would describe a Steve Coleman composition or the latest David Binney album...[an] exciting direction jazz has been taking lately in the intermingling of rock sounds into the jazz canon, especially when touches of free jazz rear their heads. It's rather challenging material, for the musicians involved and for the listener, but it's worth a listen."
— Anthony Dean-Harris, Nextbop

The Needle Drop
"The kinetic energy in the performances on this thing is m-a-s-s-i-v-e...the performances are just stellar throughout."
— The Needle Drop

Avant Music News
"These guys aren’t afraid hit it hard, paying homage to rock and jazz often in the same track. The result is a complex, yet ultimately catchy, set of tunes. But be careful – you might break a few bones trying to move your body to Fire Keeper."
— Mike Borella, Avant Music News

All About Jazz:
"Fire Keeper, the debut album from the Daniel Rosenboom Quintet, exemplifies the vast possibilities for contemporary jazz artists."
— Mike Oppenheim, All About Jazz

Live Concert Reviews

From a review of The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet Live at The Loft @ UCSD on March 13, 2014 // NBC San Diego:
"In his quintet, [Rosenboom] has fashioned something entirely new from wildly diverse precedents like the music of Ornette Coleman, Balkan-folk, heavy-metal, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra... At times the band reminded me of Ornette’s Prime Time playing at a Bulgarian rave. The liberal dosage of odd-meters and compound meters also evoked the spirit of Mahavishnu, but there was also a splash of (I swear to god) Black Sabbath tossed in for good measure... Rosenboom has a warm, gorgeous tone...imagine Freddie Hubbard gigging with Henry Threadgill in a Slavic mashup group, and you get the idea."
— Robert Bush, NBC San Diego

From a review of The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet @ The Monterey Jazz Festival on September 21, 2014 // AXS:
"It's been a long time since jazz had a clear, unifying direction, but the young 'uns have come up with a new and increasingly influential sound. Think mellow, carefully layered melodic passages for the ensemble playing, punctuated with increasingly wigged-out solos, subtle-to-overt fusion influences and an overall elegiac tone...At least a half-dozen acts at this year's MJF were cooking some flavor of this recipe, none more vigorously than trumpeter Daniel Rosenboom, whose carefully sculpted solo lines made effective counterpoints to the raucous electric squalls unleashed by guitarist Alexander Noice. And the MJF "What Is That Thing, And Does The Supportive Truss Come With It?" award goes to bassist Kai Kurosawa, playing an electric thing that had two necks, a gazillion strings and a design that screamed "mad scientist meets luthier.""
— David Becker, AXS

From a review of The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet @ the Angel City Jazz Festival on September 28, 2014 in MetalJazz:
More than most fusionistic jazzers, trumpeter Daniel Rosenboom rocks -- which doesn't mean his quintet plays simple or heavy, more like hard, intense and eclectic. The five started with African inspiration (Kai Kurosawa stalking and soaring on tapped extra-stringed Warr guitar) and ended with nervous jump (Dan Schnelle rustling the drums, Gavin Templeton wrangling the alto), while guitarist Alex Noice rode feedback and Rosenboom cattle-prodded with his assertive horn.
— Greg Burk, MetalJazz.com

 

****4/5 STARS**** DownBeat Magazine
****4.5/5 STARS**** Sydney Morning Herald


Live Videos


What is a Bear Trax?

You might be wondering what that crazy two-handed tap guitar/bass thing is that Kai plays. Well, in this video, Kai explains a bit more about the Bear Trax:


Coming together...

The members of DR5 have been playing together in various contexts for nearly a decade. Here the group talks about how we met came together: 



Photographs from Live Concerts


Artwork by Pete Morris - sketched during a live performance at the Blue Whale on September 14th, 2013.