Barry Finnerty is best known for his scorching rock and blues oriented playing with the Brecker Brothers and others (he also appeared briefly on Miles Davis’s 1980 comeback album Man With The Horn), but here, while still affecting a hot, overdriven sound (albeit it darker toned and more subtly distorted) he shows an enviable command of mid-period Coltrane. Indeed, the opening track, Count Up, is a paraphrase of Coitrane’s Countdown. Those who enjoyed John Scofield’s burning late-seventies work in a similar idiom on the Enja label should find similar enjoyment in such material. In addition, there are lighter, more lyrical episodes, including the title track and a cover of Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me. Oddly enough, the title track is only partly straightahead, swing episodes alternating with loosely funky vamps. Finnerty is accompanied by a good crew (although the drums sound a bit boxy), and the result is both revealing and enjoyable.
Discography
Count Up; Straight Ahead; Outness; I Can’t Make You Love Me; Sheer Lunacy; O.D.; Inner Urge; Elvinesque; Carnaval; Bells (62.29)
Finnerty (elg); David Kikoski (p); Mike Richmond (b); Victor Lewis (d); Chuggy Carter (pc). NYC, December 4, 1994.
(Arabesque Jazz AJ0116)
