by Scott Yanow
This is one of trumpeter Lester Bowie's most accessible albums; certainly his brief versions of &It's Howdy Doody Time& and &When the Moon Comes over the Mountain& are not difficult to understand. But actually the bulk of this album is taken up with the 16-minute title cut and a variety of Bowie's colorful originals. The highly expressive trumpeter is mostly heard with a quartet (although &The Great Pretender& also adds two vocalists and baritonist Hamiet Bluiett) and this set offers many fine examples of his original approach to making music, technically avant-garde but also borrowing aspects of earlier styles in unusual combinations.