Baikida Carroll Marionettes on a High Wire (Omnitone)

Jazzmatazz
April, 2001
Jules Epstein

            Trumpeter Baikida Carroll's Marionettes on a High Wire does not eschew form even as it triumphantly asserts a free jazz sensibility. Carroll grounds most of his musical structures in the hard bop and modal formats of mid-sixties jazz, and shows a particular affinity for the Miles Davis recordings of that era. His "Miss Julie" is as fragrant and romantic a ballad, with the pinched trumpet sound, as any Davis ever recorded, and the balance of this special recording has the verve, the vision, and the vitality of the best of mid-sixties and contemporary jazz.

            Ably added by Erica Lindsay on tenor and the master drummer Pheeroan akLaff, Carroll has assembled great musicians and crafted a wonderful addition to the jazz library. The credit due to Miles is evident; but this does not diminish the recording and, in the hands of this most capable trumpeters, elevates it.