Shadows and Reflections

Released

Trumpeter Baikida Carroll was a key member of BAG, playing on Hemphill’s Dogon A.D., Lake’s NTU: Point From Which Creation Begins, and the collective live album In Paris, Aries 1973. He didn’t record often as a leader, though. Shadows and Reflections is from 1982, a decade after the organization had split, his third album, from 1982, and features mostly non-BAG personnel. Hemphill is present on alto and tenor sax, but the rest of the band includes Anthony Davis on piano, Dave Holland on bass, and Pheeroan AkLaff on drums. Carroll was a rich, lyrical trumpet player who may remind some listeners of Lee Morgan, and his extended solos have a calm if exuberant logic. Hemphill, on the other hand, is in a deep gutbucket zone throughout, and spits his notes out like they’re burning his tongue.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by