Paul Flaherty - Voices
(Wet Paint)
The pictures Paul Flaherty paints of himself, both figuratively and literally, in the liner notes of Voices, show a man divided, a personae which Flaherty describes as the meeting of the conscious self with other personalities, namely that which bursts with the emotional medium of improvisation and that which melds the conscious self and emotional self into the music that's produced. Listeners have had little chance to meet Flaherty's conscious self; during the past twenty-five years, he's been involved in the release of twenty scattered albums and rarely left the NY/New England area, but Voices, his first solo release, gives the public a chance to encounter all sides of his musical personae all at once.
Flaherty uses the alto and tenor saxophones over the course of Voices' nine tracks to produce over seventy minutes of live, free improvisation. A solo release of such duration is an intense proposition for most musicians, but, seeing as this is Flaherty's first solo release, it seems appropriate that he takes as much time as he needs, regardless of whether it's easy to make it through Voices in one listen. Any allusion to this difficulty is surely not a sign of a weakness in Flaherty's technique or ability. In fact, Voices proves him to be extremely flexible, creative, and full of a musical passion that many of his contemporaries might wish for. His melodic work is jagged but encircled by a strong pathos, and Flaherty easily forces a melodic line to dissolve into a noisy, red-cheeked fury before coaxing it back out, unharmed, into focus. He sometimes locks into small minimalist permutations that coil around themselves tightly before exploding into molten aural lava or ever so slightly coming untwined and shifting shape into something new. Comparisons to Peter Brötzmann seem apt at times, especially in regards to the blustery tone that even many of Flaherty's more balladic pieces give off, but there's nothing in the way of mimicry or hat-tipping to be found here. Flaherty's saxophone explores plenty of sonic ground that's little comparable to anything but inspiration in the outside world: crying babies, the whinny of a horse, or a distant jet engine.
Paul Flaherty has waited a long time to release his first solo album, and the countless hours of public performance (sans audience) on the streets of Hartford, CT, have paid dividends in an album of improvisatory fire which doesn't wane over the course of the album's duration. That such intensity and skill can seem commonplace by the end of Voices may seem to detract from the album's quality, but it's a signal that Flaherty is a force to be reckoned with, and one whose voice should be heard by far more people than it has thus far.
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