The celebrated ballet by Piotr Tchaikovsky – The Nutcracker – became such a worldwide success in the composer’s lifetime that he [Tchaikovsky himself] made a selection...
The Latin Side of Jazz is a curated playlist that showcases selected tracks from the best Latin jazz, Cuban, Brasilian, Flamenco, Ibero-American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latin jazz music....
If you think Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s remarkable, 1960 interpretation of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet, The Nutcracker, is the final jazz word on the popular orchestral...
A rare, albeit singular feeling of joy while living under a lockdown due to the pandemic is the receipt, in the mail, of a recording by...
Joe McCarthy and The New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band continue to impress with their new CD, the first after the band’s relocation from Washington, DC to New...
Dick Brewer is a pianist with a fine technique and a sure-footed way around the complexities of the Latin music idiom. However, on It’s All About...
The relatively small, yet deeply rewarding output of the Afro Bop Alliance Big Band is skillfully wrought, thoroughly idiomatic, inventive and communicative on every level and...
The joi de vivre is palpable, though not unexpected, from the opening notes of Afro Bop Alliance’s Angel Eyes. But something is different now. Realization comes...
There is a sensuous, almost bordering on lustful, quality to the music on Una Más by the big band, Afro Bop Alliance. Not that it is...