AFRO BOP ALLIANCE

Celebrating 25 years, the Latin Grammy® Award-winning New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band is an Afro-Cuban jazz ensemble uniting world-class musicians in a sound without borders — rooted in the Bebop tradition and enriched by African, Afro-Caribbean, Brazilian, and global musical cultures.

Founded and led by drummer Joe McCarthy, NYABABB draws from an extensive original catalog composed and arranged by McCarthy, Vince Norman, and fellow band members, with collaborations from Alex Brown, Hector Martignon, Dave Samuels, VictorProvost, and Roland Vazquez. The band features eight recordings on the Origin, Zoho, Heads-Up, and Angelface Records labels.

Awards & Recognition 
NYABABB won Latin Jazz Album of the Year at the 9th Annual Latin Grammy® Awards (2008) for Afro Bop Alliance featuring Dave Samuels, which was also nominated at the 51st Grammy® Awards. In 2023, McCarthy and Norman received a Latin Grammy® nomination for Best Arrangement for Waltz of the Flowers from The Pan American Nutcracker Suite. The band has also received four Wammie Awards (Washington DC Area Music Association), including Best Latin Ensemble (twice), Best Latin Recording, and Best Big Band Recording.

Upcoming Project
NYABABB’s forthcoming project, ONE: For Harmony, For Humanity, is a multidisciplinary album and performance work exploring unity through Afro-Latin jazz, Indian, and funk traditions woven together with spoken word, dance, visual art, and community voices. Spanning from intimate quartet settings to the full power of the big band, ONE reflects a shared vision of grace, compassion, and human connection — a musical call to remember that we are one body with many parts. ONE: For Harmony, For Humanity was supported by New Music USA’s Creator Fund in 2026-27, and funded in part by the Pathways To Jazz grant, a donor-advised fund of the Boulder County Arts Alliance.

Performance Highlights
NYABABB has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Segerstrom Center for the Arts, The Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, Blues Alley, Yoshi’s, The Silver Spring Jazz Festival, and The Smithsonian’s Jazz Appreciation Series, among many others. Notable guest artists include Paquito D’Rivera, Poncho Sanchez, Arturo O’Farrill, Dave Samuels, Ryan Keberle, Antonio
Hart, and Luis Perdomo.

Education
Deeply committed to music education, NYABABB has led clinics and master classes at institutions including The University of Texas Arlington, Georgetown University, Rowan University, Shenandoah Conservatory, and West Chester University. Joe McCarthy’s Afro-Cuban Big Band Play-Along Series, published by Alfred Music, was named one of the Best Educational Drum Set Videos by both Modern Drummer Magazine and the Zildjian Readers Poll.

Small Group
The Afro Bop Alliance is the intimate counterpart to the Latin Grammy® Award-winning New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band, bringing the same world-class musicianship and boundary-crossing sound to smaller settings. Inspired by the trailblazing Bebop innovation of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, the ensemble draws from the NYABABB catalog while embracing the spontaneity, interplay, and immediacy that define the small group tradition.

Founded and led by drummer Joe McCarthy, the Afro Bop Alliance delivers the same musical message as the big band — rooted in Bebop and enriched by African, Afro-Caribbean, Brazilian, and global musical cultures — creating an experience that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant. The ensemble’s dynamic and accessible approach connects with audiences of all backgrounds, making every performance an invitation into the living, breathing world of Afro-Latin jazz.