Joe McCarthy's New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band: The Pan American Nutcracker Suite

Yes, Peter Tchaikovsky's timeless Nutcracker Suite is basically holiday music; and, yes, the 2022 holiday season is squarely in everyone's rear-view mirror. Even so, there is always room for a fresh approach to the annual festive staple, which is what drummer Joe McCarthy's New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band brings to The Pan American Nutcracker Suite.

The Nutcracker has been rhythmically amended before, but never quite like this, as McCarthy and the band use the strong rhythmic traditions of Cuba, Brazil, Africa and even China to place new accents on the holiday classic. The opening "Overture," for example, nestles in a pleasing "Afro-groove" accentuated by elaborate passages from brass and reeds, and encompassing an elegant trumpet solo by Alex Norris. And that is just for starters.

"March" begins as a bolero before adding mambo and straight-ahead swing to crisp solos from pianist Luis Perdomo and tenor saxophonist Ben Kono, after which the familiar "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" morphs into a not-so-familiar cha-cha in six-eight time whose muscular solos are by Perdomo, baritone saxophonist Frank Basile, trombonist Ryan Keberle and alto saxophonist Alejandro Aviles. The "Trepak" (Russian dance) is presented as a mambo, underscored by McCarthy's persuasive timekeeping, "Arabian Dance" as a sensuous Afro-Cuban melody with an agile soprano saxophone solo by Andrew Gould.

"Chinese Dance" features more outstanding work by the rhythm section—McCarthy; Perdomo; bassist Boris Kozlov, percussionist Samuel Torres—as well as by the trombones amid a rhythmically challenging backdrop. "Dance of the Reed Flutes," inspired by Brazil's partido alto rhythm, swings heartily from funk to samba as guitarist Vinny Valentino lends essential substance, as he does on the closing "Waltz of the Flowers," another flat-out blazer that embraces a Venezuelan Joropo beat and an ardent tenor solo, by either Kono or Luis Hernandez.

On the plus side, McCarthy's band is superb, the arrangements by Vince Norman are bright and pleasing. Having said that, the Nutcracker is in essence holiday music, even though McCarthy and Norman have done their best to overpass that boundary. And the eight-part suite clocks in at slightly under forty minutes. Weighing the pros and cons, the pros have a clear and decisive advantage. Well worth one's time.

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