We did it! “Mr Sun Plays Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite” debuted to a packed house at the FreshGrass Festival on Friday.
Much Thanks to the FreshGrass Foundation for commissioning the work, and special thanks to Leo Austin-Muehleck, Dan Bui, Ella Bebe Jordan, Kathleen Parks, Clara Rose and Caleb Swan, aka the Hollywood Honk, for rounding out the “big band.”
We couldn’t have done it in such style without them! AND special huge thanks to Dave Sinko for being there to engineer.
The album comes out December 1 on Adhyâropa Records, but you can preorder vinyl, downloads and CDs at mrsun.bandcamp.com
In March of 2023, Darol Anger, Joe K. Walsh, Grant Gordy, & Aidan O’Donnell went into the recording studio to transmogrify the legendary Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker Suite into the Acoustic String Band, as Mr Sun.
Their studio of choice was Mass/MOCA Recording studio #9 in North Adams, Massachusetts, a state-of-the art recording facility built by the Mass/MOCA Art Museum. The recording engineer was the equally legendary David Sinko, who has recorded many of the most important and innovative acoustic string bands of the last 40 years. Mr Sun premiered the work at the Freshgrass Festival in fall of 2023, concurrent with the release of the recording. The Project has been generously underwritten by the Freshgrass Foundation.
Tchaikovsky’s extraordinary Nutcracker Suite contains some of the most beloved and familiar melodies in the Western world. Mr Sun has seized upon the inspiration of Duke Ellington’s brilliant, sly, & urbane re-interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Suite as an opportunity to salute and re-invent this wildly multi-faceted work anew, through the lens of the American String Band, a musical form which now contains many styles and is presently engaged in a marathon upheaval of innovation and expansion.