“Everyone has a Christmas album, but this one, for sure, is distinctive, different, and delightful. And a worthy successor to Ellington and Strayhorn.” — Richard J Salvucci, All About Jazz

“The Pan American Nutcracker Suite is an aural tour de force, an all-encompassing, immersive sound experience.” — music writer Ken Micallef

Presented in the spirit of the season as part of the Yale School of Music’s Ellington Jazz Series, the Latin Grammy Award-winning New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band and the Yale Concert Band will perform two, interspersed settings of Tchaikovsky’s beloved “Nutcracker” Suite.

The New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band will perform its famed Pan American Nutcracker Suite, a jazz/Afro-Caribbean reconceptualization of Tchaikovsky’s classic co-created and arranged by drummer Joe McCarthy and Vince Norman that unites diverse musical traditions of the Americas and beyond. Each movement of the Pan American Nutcracker Suit will be followed by one from the traditional, classical arrangement performed by the Yale Concert Band, led by Thomas C. Duffy, in a wonderful presentation that juxtaposes two complementary versions of this timeless masterpiece.