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The Swingin’ Nutcracker album cover

Album guide

The Swingin’ Nutcracker

Shorty Rogers

Composer
Tchaikovsky
Released
1960
Label
RCA Victor
Forces
Big band, Trumpet
Personnel
Shorty Rogers, with a studio big band of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, piano, bass and drums

Shorty Rogers and Duke Ellington began recording rival Nutcrackers within weeks of each other in May 1960, and Rogers’s final session fell on the very day Ellington began his.

History favoured Ellington, but a contemporary High Fidelity reviewer judged Rogers’s reorchestration the more imaginative of the two, singling out his sharply swinging saxophone quintet.

Hear both

The classical side contains only the source pieces used on the album, in album order. The jazz side presents the complete album whenever a dependable copy can be embedded.

The originalsTchaikovsky · classical source works

The album opens and closes with separate jazz treatments of the Miniature Overture, so the classical recording appears in both places. The other nine sources follow in album order.

Jazzed upShorty Rogers · 1960
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Source works

The album’s complete track listing, with each classical source identified and original compositions marked plainly.

  1. Like Nutty Overture (Finale)The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a: I. Miniature Overture
  2. A Nutty Marche (Marche)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: March
  3. Blue Reeds (Reed Flute Blues)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Dance of the Reed Flutes
  4. The Swingin’ Plum Fairy (Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
  5. Snowball (Waltz Of The Snowflakes)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Waltz of the Snowflakes
  6. Six Pak (Trépak)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Trepak (Russian Dance)
  7. Flowers Of The Cats (Waltz Of The Flowers)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Waltz of the Flowers
  8. Dance Expresso (Coffee)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Arabian Dance (Coffee)
  9. Pass The Duke (Pas De Deux)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Pas de deux
  10. China Where? (Tea Dance)The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Chinese Dance (Tea)
  11. Overture For Shorty (Overture In Miniature)The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a: I. Miniature Overture