Customer Reviews

Last Opinion

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just got this CD a few days ago and I am thoroughly impressed with the playing throughout. Every tune is artfully arranged and played. Check out Bowdon's solo on the first track. There are no weak links in the group. Brown Town is particularly inspiring, it's a perfect blend of humor and seriousness. Wilkerson's playing on that tune is great (is that a little bit of Albert Ayler I hear?). I heard the band live at the Ravinia Festival a few years ago and was blown away. They ended with Brown Town. I had high expectations when I bought the album and it didn't disappoint. Enjoy.

First, let me inform everyone that the cd is titled Last Option, not Last Opinion. This is one of my favorite cds, probably the favourite little big band cd I own. The harmonies and interplay are from something 40 or 50 years ago but the sounds and melodies are very much in the present. The music often gets close to the edge without ever going completely over it, like that ride in the water park that my kids insist going on but I don't trust.

Ed Wilkerson Jr is a 1st rate saxophone/clarinet player/composer/arranger his talents have been far too overlooked in new jazz Chicago or in American jazz generally. The sound is often rich and thick with 3 bass clef instruments, the charts are imaginative, the improvisers are intelligent soloists at the service of the compositions. Overall, Like the AACM masters, Muhal, Threadgill, Lester Bowie etc the 8 Bold Souls confirm the potency of the jazz tradition while still extending and adding to it. Had this 5 years stands up to repeated listening, buy it and enjoy for a long while