Jazz Beat: New Jazz Order Big Band presents Ellington’s Nutcracker, at Take Five Coffee + Bar

If you pay any attention to the local jazz scene, you’re bound to recognize the name of trumpeter Clint Ashlock. You might even have had the pleasure of watching him in action as he directs the prestigious Kansas City Jazz Orchestra or leads the New Jazz Order Big Band at the collective’s longstanding Tuesday-night residency at Harling’s. In whichever environment, Ashlock’s talent is indisputable. Friday night, his New Jazz Order makes a special trip to Johnson County to perform Duke Ellington’s 1960 take on The Nutcracker Suite. As conceived by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, this is a no-holds-barred, swinging rearrangement of the Christmas classic. (The movement “Sugar Rum Cherry” turns Tchaikovsky’s fairy into quite the lush.). Ashlock’s New Jazz Order is just the big band to do these jazz arrangements justice.