Track Listing

1. Rendezvous
2. Naima
3. Five for Elvin
4. Soul Sauce
5. Picture Frame
6. Stolen Moments
7. Birds of a Feather
8. Afro Green
9. Bemsha Swing

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55361 in Music
• Released on: 2008-03-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Album Description
The Caribbean Jazz Project-Afro Bop Alliance, set for release on Heads Up International, recasts nine CJP signature pieces - some by composer/vibraphonist Dave Samuels and others by Coltrane, Monk and other jazz luminaries - in a fresh new light via full-bodied arrangements by the Maryland-based Afro Bop Alliance, one of the most exciting new bands on the Latin jazz scene today.

From the Artist
The genesis of the project was more organic than top-down conceptual, says Dave Samuels, who first encountered the Afro Bop Alliance a few years ago and enlisted trombonist Dan Drew to rearrange some CJP tunes originally written for the small group setting. "Dan very cleverly and artfully took these songs and orchestrated them for big band," says Samuels. "Then I thought, `Why don't we try to record this and see what happens?' So the whole idea evolved from the music outward, as opposed to the concept coming before the music."

The results were eye-opening, even for the musician who composed the original pieces. "Repackaging something that had been played a lot in a smaller group was a way to see it and hear it in a new light," says Samuels. "You react differently to it. It's a different ball game. It's the difference between playing on a five-man team and a fifteen-man team. And if you're the listener, you may have heard these tunes with the small group, but it's a completely different experience hearing it with this big band."

About the Artist
The Caribbean Jazz Project, the Latin jazz collective of vibraphonist David Samuels, steel pan drummer Andy Narell and saxophonist Paquito d'Rivera, crafted their first recordings on Heads Up International in the 1990s and immediately captured the imagination of audiences and critics worldwide. In the years since, the GRAMMY Award winning ensemble CJP led by Samuels has recorded subsequent albums on the Concord label and a few of the faces in the group's roster have changed. Nevertheless, Samuels and company continue to explore and test the commonly accepted boundaries of Latin jazz - and jazz in general - via innovative compositions and exciting arrangements.

Since their inception less than five years ago, the brassy and high-energy Afro Bop Alliance has electrified audiences at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Jazz Café, The W. C. Handy Jazz Festival and many other music and cultural festivals.

Customer Reviews

Afro Bop Alliance is big band latin swing
I bought this album due to a newspaper review about its nomination for a Latin Grammy. It actually won the Latin Grammy and was well deserved. Afro Bop Alliance is a group of mostly Navy Band musicians from Annapolis who team up with Dave Samuels, formerly of Spyro Gyra and with Gerry Mulligan. Dave's group CJP has been around for a while but this is the first pairing of the two groups. The album swings hard and while it is a studio album it sounds like a good live recording with no unnatural overdubs. I recommend this to anyone who likes big band, Maynard Ferguson, Spyro Gyra, or Latin Music. There is good cover of Stolen Moments and other jazz classics. What is not to like?

Winnin' Alliance!
Just great. I listened "Naima" thanks to a on-line broadcast, first time. Immediatly I got no one doubt: I bought this CD. Soon. And I enjoid very much the hot, elegant beauty of the other tunes of this All-Stars album signed with the 'chicano' West-Coast spirit of 70' and 80'. Expecially 'bout "Soul Sauce" (immortal Cal Tjader in my Godness) and the unespectable, incredibly beautiful, "Stolen Moments". Oliver Nelson must be very proud of this version.
Trust im me: I'm a Latin Jazz lover since late 70'... Please get this album.
Davide Cristante