Reviewer Michael G. Nastos has bestowed the coveted All Music Guide Album Pick (note the illustrated check mark) on Wilkes’ recent Pi Recordings debut (his 2nd album as a leader), Cries from tha Ghetto with a 4 star rating.
Nastos writes “Staying true to his reputation as a post-Lester Bowie-type jazz trumpeter, Corey Wilkes and his band Abstrakt Pulse take cues from hard and post-bop, creative improvised music, and populist latter-period Art Ensemble of Chicago sounds. Alternating between tuneful free music and spontaneously composed snippets, the formidable Wilkes and his quintet keep the music moving forward with vitality and a keen sense of drama…Wilkes seems like a chameleon, not bound to a single style, and is comfortable in either this context or with a more commercial approach. He’s no doubt a brilliant player, young yet wise beyond his years, and while scratching the surface, displays plenty of grit, street smarts, and a serious fun attitude, marking him as one of the most promising trumpet players in the 2000s.”
Read the rest of the review here.
In other Wilkes news, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Manny Theiner wrote of Wilkes, “If there’s hope for the future of jazz as a continuously evolving art form, it lies in the spirit of young players like Chicago’s workhorse trumpeter Corey Wilkes.”
