The KCCK Featured Album for December is “The Pan American Nutcracker Suite
” by the New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band. Tchaikovsky’s classic work has enjoyed tremendous popularity as a perennial winter holiday tradition. Drummer and bandleader Joe McCarthy and co-arranger Vince Norman infuse the original work with the rhythmic traditions of Cuba, Africa and Brazil, expressed in riveting arrangements and brilliant solos, while adding color and dynamics to the funk, classical and Afro-Cuban musicality this eighteen piece band is renowned for. “The Pan American Nutcracker Suite” is on Angelface Records. Purchase.