Ant Farm

Starting in the mid-’80s, AACM veteran Edward Wilkerson Jr. put forth a rich and winningly eclectic jazz vision with his long-running group 8 Bold Souls. Their third LP showed off Wilkerson’s knack for deploying the ensemble like a little big band, interweaving lush ensemble arrangements with gutsy solos on pieces such as “A Little Encouragement.” At other times, as on the title track, the octet behaves almost like an avant-garde chamber group. As a whole, Ant Farm reveals how, by the ‘90s, in the wake of AACM forebears like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the distinctions between various wings and factions of jazz had eroded, resulting in a generation of players-composers like Wilkerson who could comfortably draw from anywhere on the genre’s sonic spectrum, and make it all cohere — with crucial support in this case from reedist Mwata Bowden, cellist Naomi Millender and others among the Souls’ formidable roster.