Dave Samuels’ Caribbean Jazz Project has been a huge success, from its inception in the early 1990s, when Samuels formed the group along with pan steel drummer Andy Narell and reedman Paquito D’Rivera, through its Grammy Award-winning recordings of the last decade, including The Gathering and Birds of a Feather. The group’s promotion of the connection between Afro-American jazz, Latin beats, and Island music has not only been commercially successful, but artistically pleasing as well. For his latest recording under the CJP banner, Samuels has teamed with the amazing Afro Bop Alliance, an Annapolis, Maryland-based group whose explorations of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian musical styles have fast earned them a solid reputation among Latin music fans.

The arrangements here were conceived by Samuels and the orchestration executed masterfully by Afro Bop Alliance trombonist Dan Drew. Working with both Samuels-penned material from Carribean Jazz Project’s seven previous recordings and classic material by the likes of John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Oliver Nelson, and Thelonious Monk, Drew creates charts that often bring to mind some of Gillespie’s most successful big band ventures into Afro-Cuban jazz styles. At the same time, Samuels’ masterful work on vibes and marimba recalls another Latin jazz pioneer, Cal Tjader.

In fact the group here does a nicely revved-up version of “Soul Sauce” here, a number composed by Milton Delugg, Dizzy Gillespie, and Chano Panzo. Tjader had a hit with his version, which the group uses as a base, but with their own smooth, sultry conception in mind. Samuels’ solo work is marvelous here, as is the interplay between his vibraphone, the piano of Harry Appelman, and the dual percussion team of Joe McCarthy and Roberto Quintero. Appelman switches to electric piano for a funky solo workout that keeps the energy high, followed by Chris Walter’s bopped-out trumpet. The track is indicative of what this disc delivers throughout—a solid energy level, great interplay and soloing by a fantastic group of musicians, and a dose of good old fun.

All of the tracks here have been done by CJP before, including the covers of standard or popular jazz tunes, but the addition of a rock solid horn section brings them to a new level. Coltrane’s “Naima” is given a rhumba feel, but the voicing of soprano sax and muted trumpet lend an underlying strength to what may seem, in some hands, like a fragile melody. Monk’s “Bemsha Swing” gets a very hot Cuban workout, with Quintero’s conga work central to the tune’s rhythmic re-invention.

This alliance between the laid-back island vibe of Caribbean Jazz Project and the Latin drive of Afro Bop Alliance is a strong one, and for listeners who love Latin music, jazz big band, and great arrangements, it’s a match made in heaven.