It is OUT! Mr Sun Plays Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite is now immediately available for download, or shipping of CDs and vinyl to anyone who’s interested.
Check out the mrsun band website for our tour dates in December!
Mr Sun records and performs a new interpretation of Ellington’s legendary Nutcracker Suite
Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite contains some of the most beloved and familiar melodies in the Western world.
The Mr Sun band has seized upon the inspiration of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s brilliant, sly, & urbane re-interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Suite as an opportunity to salute and re-invent this wildly multi-facted work anew through the lens of the American String Band, a musical form which now contains myriad styles and is presently engaged in a marathon upheaval of innovation and expansion. The Project was generously underwritten by the Freshgrass Foundation, in collaboration with Mass/MOCA Art Museum.
On Mr Sun’s new recording, the pieces of the Suite range from close interpretations of Billy Strayhorn’s original charts to intense extrapolations based on the spirit of the material. Mr Sun generally played original improvised solos, though some crucial musical statements by giants such as Johnny Hodges and Paul Gonsalves were transcribed directly and played in their spirit. Most of Strayhorn’s startling original horn voicings have been preserved in bowed strings, with multi-mandolin parts adding a punchy edge.