Solla is Argentinian-born but based in New York and has led his nine-piece orchestra there with these first-call players since 2010, this crowd-funded release their first appearance on record. All the compositions are his, bar ‘American Patrol’, which he says he has ‘southamericanized’ and they juxtapose his classical upbringing with a contemporary slant on tango jazz and percussion. The album has apparently been Grammy-nominated and must be counted as something of an eclectic melange. To quote the blurb, it combines the ‘freedom of jazz with tango and folk rhythms from Argentina and Latin America’. Certainly the writing is ambitious, layered and quite complex with sustained motifs as on the 10-minute ‘Llegará, Llegará, Llegará’, the piano-led riff quite mesmeric, the percussive underpinning setting up an accordion interlude backed by a flute-led ensemble passage. Violin and trombone then get to play before Solla solos. See what I mean by a melange? ‘Chakafrik’ is simpler at first with a West Coast feel, the writing coloured by Ellis' bass-clarinet. Keberle takes the theme, percussion puttering away, as violin repeats and improvises, the tempo dipping in Gil Evans-ish mode, accordion again out front, the horns punching in as Armacost solos at length over a series of counter-melodies. There are moments of calm amid the storms, as when Norris plays ‘Para la Paz’ on flugelhorn, the writing understated and all the better for it. ‘Suite Piazzaollana’ runs for 12 minutes and has the authentic tango feel, accordion to the fore before the brass steps in. ‘American Patrol’ is just fun, cleverly rewritten with the impressive Keberle dominant, while ‘Raro’ could almost suit the Mingus Big Band. Overall, there may be just too much going on here for those of us who follow the straightahead. Still, if the fusion of cultures is your thing, this could be for you.