Paul Flaherty - Focused & Bewildered

2019 release

Paul Flaherty - alto and tenor sax

There are the expected expressions of raw intensity—a piece like "Public Outrage Blues" includes an aggressive onslaught of repeated, jagged phrases, for example—but even those segments are tempered by more lyrical turns that seem to open the music to other places. It is in the juxtapositions between the abrasive, ragged flights and the graceful, bluesy turns which emerge on a piece like the closing track, "One Touch of a Car Horn," that the record displays much of its power. This is not to say that the music is "accessible," exactly; Flaherty has invested too many years pursuing his distinctive craft to produce music that is easy on the ears. But an album like this one does challenge facile appraisals of energy music as lacking the capacity for gentler emotions. They are definitely here, even if they are found chiefly in the crevices that form amidst Flaherty's more unruly excavations. - Troy Dostert