Afro Bop Alliance

The New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band led by drummer Joe McCarthy is the 2008 Latin Grammy Award Winning Afro Cuban Jazz Ensemble for Latin Jazz Album of the Year. Joe McCarthy formed ABA in the DC area almost two decades ago and has since relocated to NYC, currently celebrating Afro Bop's seventh release UPWARDS on ZOHO Music. The New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band's music and performance has received worldwide acclaim and the band has recorded and or performed with the likes of Dave Samuels, Paquito D' Rivera, Arturo O' Farrill and Poncho Sanchez. "There’s a grand precedent for Afro-Cuban big band jazz. If the genre had a Hall of Fame, it would be stocked with vivacious, exuberant figures: Machito’s Afro-Cubans, Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band, Tito Puente. As Afro-Cuban big bands of today aim to extend this genre’s great legacy, their success depends largely on how these ensembles define themselves against existing tropes. The Afro-Bop Alliance Big Band, captained by drummer Joe McCarthy, occupies a singular spot in the timeline of Afro-Cuban ensembles, at once a torchbearer of the genre’s storied history and also one of its fiercest innovators." ~ Downbeat Magazine