"Like Miles Davis, Clark Terry and Lester Bowie, Baikida Carroll is a cutting edge St. Louis trumpet player. Carroll is a brilliant, demanding and innovative composer and soloist, with a big, commanding sound, tone and attack. Always in demand, Carroll is revered by his peers and has my total admiration and respect"
_ Quincy Troupe Author of Miles and Me, co-author of Miles: The Autobiography (2002)

"Colorful, loose and imaginative are meek understatements when describing the sumptuous music on Marionettes on a High Wire."
-John Murph, Down Beat [ full review ]

"There's a beautiful kind of daring in the music -- a rough tenderness in Carroll's trumpet tone, a palpable spiritual commitment from all the players involved. Carroll and his group unleash a highly adventurous sound...a freshness and multi-dimensionality that is truly rare."
-David Adler, All Music Guide [ full review ]

"Baikida Carroll, whose balance of bravada and tenderness, facility and understatement mark him as a player to be reckoned with."
-Jon Pareles, The New York Times

"Baikida is a Bad Motha...! A true disciple of the maintenance and extension of the trumpet tradition."
-Lester Bowie, Trumpeter

Jazz Journalists Association Top 10 of 2001
-Williard Jenkins (JJA) [ full review ]

"[Marionettes On a High Wire] Phenomenal in both conception & execution...one of the trumpet's most brilliant improvising players ... one of jazz's most rewarding composers ... leads a superb quintet whose music is exciting, subtle, melodious & adventurous."
-Lucky Oceans, "The Planet," Australian Broadcasting Corporation [ full review ]

"Elegantly rendered shifts in meter and memorable melodies, awash with blistering yet finely articulated soloing by the leader...Carroll's latest release equates to one beautifully fabricated production, that imparts a lasting impression. Now, we can only hope that Baikida Carroll sustains fewer gaps between recordings! Recommended!!"
-Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz    [ full review ]

"I consider the opportunity to bear witness to the eloquent beauty of Baikida's music a distinct honor. Baikida Carroll is polarized; poised; at a matchless point between lyricism and fire."
-Julius Hemphill, Composer/Musician [ full review ]

"Carroll is equally comfortable "inside" as "outside"...is no stylistic chameleon, and always maintains a strong identity of his own... Finely crafted and brimming over with verve and unselfconscious originality, this new release is a delight from start to finish, and a welcome spotlighting of a too-often overlooked talent."
-Steve Holtje, CD Now [ full review ]

"Marionettes on a High Wire is in that rare class for me where words like superb, and exquisite get used....tough, swinging, angry, loving, thoughtful and expressive cutting-edge jazz. Don't miss this one."
-SD Feeney, Face Magazine

...more reviews