Aria Nativa by Paul Flaherty

Aria Nativa is more than Paul Flaherty's third solo saxophone album; it merges rhapsodic avant garde music, patriotic dream verse, and mortality into a frighteningly pure work of audio, visual and literary sledge. Recorded during a pair of 2007 performances, its four pieces capture lifeblood in stunning detail from foot stomps to gut hollers and crowd roars as Flaherty's free power blues dips into the well of wretchedness yet emerges with pumping fists of mirth. It's the sorta record that splays naked the artist for all: equal parts wise ass and universal vision.

Digital version includes "No More America" -- Ken DelPonte's epic poem that spans nearly five decades of U.S. political underbelly and fills the album's back jacket, framing the atmosphere the music was recorded under.

"He's been at it since the '70s and has become an underground champion of chasing the Eternal Now." -- All About Jazz