James Finn Trio - Plaza de Toros

Clean Feed 34

Few customs challenge the tenets of cultural relativism like the Spanish bullfight. I’ve only witnessed one (and a botched Mexican variant at that), but the experience left a coppery smell of gratuitously spilt bovine blood in my nostrils that lingers to this day. Tenor saxophonist James Finn takes a different ideological tack to the ritual on his new Clean Feed disc. His third album to date it’s one that builds appreciably on the previous pair. Two other entries (The Last Matador and Into the Afterworld), part of a proposed trilogy, are set for release on his own Ginko Leaf label. Approaching the controversial sport from a vantage closer to Hemingway, Finn celebrates the symbolism and grandeur attached to the event as a cunning contest of wills between man and animal archetype. Each of the program’s tracks corresponds to an episode in the confrontation. The whole unfurls suite-like, one piece folding into the next.

Unlike Finn’s earlier two outings, this one doesn’t carry any special aural mandate for the listener or the subjective dodginess of demo quality sound. His horn, Dominic Duval’s strings and Warren Smith’s traps are all rendered in near pristine studio clarity. Just skip to the incandescent drum preface to the closer “Toro Bravo” for indicative and engrossing litmus. The difference makes this disc an optimal entry point for folks just becoming acquainted with Finn’s already-storied talents. For those not in need of persuading it may engender mixed feelings. Perhaps it’s the carryover of instrumentation. It’s certainly a function of taster’s choice. But this latest entry didn’t greet my ears with the same degree of revelatory inebriation. The chinks in Finn’s sturdy armor, miniscule as they may be, are more visible. Along with the exposed vulnerability comes an even greater expressive range.

Spiraling ascendant arpeggios and hoary overblowing are still prominent weapons in his arsenal, but a counterweight of dark lyricism tempers the fulminatory tendencies. “El Tericio de Varas” opens as a somber dirge, Finn’s charcoal horn fluttering and smudging across a backdrop of humming arco bass and crustacean scuttling brushes. An inevitable, but barely perceptible ramp up follows. Finn’s tone tapers and hardens to banderilla sharpness, poking pointillistic holes in the track’s tough-textured rhythmic hide. “Torea de Capa” and the title track he sounds akin to Andrew Lamb, blasting through Moorish motifs that carry the regal gravitas of Andalusian anthems. On the former his tenor mimics the staccato fanfare of bugles over Smith’s martial snare. Duval summons Flamenco strums on the latter, evoking the memory of Jimmy Garrison as Finn once again entreats the spirits of deceased toreadors with ecstatic swooping cries.

Energy ebbs and swells in the album’s second half. The tender ballad miniature “Eyes of Angelina,” where Finn daubs delicately at a velveteen melody, segues into the conflagration of “El Tercio de Vanderillas,” where turbulent tenor bucks and snorts against a counterpoint of thrumming bass and stampeding percussion. “El Tercio de Muleta” traverses much of the same trajectory, gliding from comparative and industrious calm to ululating blowout and back again. Such ensemble shifts all occur on well-greased gears and Finn’s fluctuations never lose their logic or coherence. This talent for irrepressible continuity marks an important edge for the saxophonist over many of his peers. Duval and Smith dovetail with it beautifully, giving the trio an uncommon advantage. Even so, the configuration has its limitations. Hopefully Finn will opt for more expansive and/or exploratory instrumentation on his project. As appealing as this new music is there are even more impressive heights to essay in the future.

~ Derek Taylor