Jazzwise

August 2005

James Finn

Plaza de Toros

Clean Feed 0034CD

The relatively new tenor saxophonist Finn follows a long lineage of improvising musicians who have tapped into Spanish themes. Plaza de Toros is a long way from the sumptuous orchestrations of Miles' Sketches of Spain ofr the graceful meanderings of Chick's My Spanish Heart.  Taking the subject of bullfighting by the horns so to speak, Finn has made music that has a rough, raw, at times ravaged character, one evoking a certain rugged violence as well as a colourful, stylised ritual.  Finn's expansive phrasal range, his combination of short, truncated lines and spiralling choruses that climax in Shepp-like honks and hollers potently serve the sub-text of choreographed conflict.  As does the stripped down nature of the ensemble. The wide open spaces left between Finn's feisty horn, Duval's fizzing bass and Smith's heated percussion creates a papable suspense that occasionally becomes oppressive.  At times the harmonic canvas of the music is pushed, pulled and pummelled into abstraction but for the most part a very plaintive melodic voice shines through, confirming Finn has a gift for a romanticism that embraces Dyonisian as well as Apollonian energies.  This is dark, brooding music steeped in a morbid grace.  Kevin Le Gendre