James Finn - Opening the Gates

Cadence Jazz 1170

On this disc, his debut date as a leader, saxophonist James Finn shares publishing rights with his partners Dominic Duval and Whit Dickey under the ASCAP cooperative Voluble Horn Music. It’s a fitting catchall phrase for Finn’s up close and personal approach but due to the demo fidelity of half of the disc’s eight tracks, slightly less applicable to Duval and Dickey in places. Still, the sound is far from mediocre and both men usually surmount the minor audio handicapping.

Upon hearing the source tape, made in Finn’s living room, producer Bob Rusch encouraged a second session to fill out the disc. He also signed Finn to a CIMP date at The Spirit Room (a possible shared affection for ‘living room’ acoustics here?). Heeding Finn’s phrasing and tone it’s easy to hear why he earned Rusch’s enthusiastic approval. All eight collectively improvised cuts are birthed from the rich lineage of post-Coltrane free jazz that forms the root of Rusch’s vast catalog. The titles convey congruous metaphysical referents with labels like “Falling Blossoms Rising Moon” and “Spinning Pyramids Propelled” accentuating the intangible nature of the music on hand.

“Stone Birds’ Northward Helix,” the set’s opener, holds a typically illusory title with hard music within. Finn’s declamatory entrance makes it abundantly clear as to just what sort of artistic repository he’s drawing from as shades of Ayler and Sanders alight in the crevices between his exclamations. Throwing the figurative sluice gates open with fluttering legato lines that leap from the tenor’s bowels skyward he rides an undulating tide of cymbals and Doppler arco bass. The title track starts with Finn in isolation, stretching a melodic kernel like a piece of taffy through a series of vertical permutations. Dickey’s compartmentalized stick rolls eke out a choppy undercurrent and push the saxophonist into a rush of lambent upper register squeals. Duval is left to pluck away absently from the flank and it’s here where the recorded acoustics him a disservice.

Finn is obviously very serious about his chosen vocation, but rather than resorting to poker-faced histrionics he treats his horn as a means of reified emotional expression. A strong logic underlies each of his solos and the team of Duval and Dickey respond to his concentrative delivery with responsive work of their own. Finn may be the obvious front man for the trio, but he makes ample room for his friends. Dickey gets things rolling on “Starlight Extensions” with a patented beat-parsing display; Duval holds similar cardinal clout on “Spinning Pyramids…” plucking at his strings as if they were a nest of tautly stretched rubber bands. Finn’s ensuing solos on each make abundant use of false register whistles and whinnies, but calm creeps into his creations as well, no matter how raucous they seem on the surface. “Truth Exiled in Paradise” shows a more dulcet side, Finn’s tenor flirting with the fringes of an alto’s range, caressing a melodic motif through the tender exhalations of notes. With two more sessions already in the can and set to pop there’s no doubt in my mind that Finn is already a voice to keep ears tuned to in 2004 and well beyond.

Note: despite dilligent googling I came up empty on a cover shot. A pic of the man in action will have to suffice as substitute instead.

~ Derek Taylor