Not many Latin bands are making it these days without a singer. If you live in an urban area, you may notice the plethora of channels on your car radio playing salsa, meringue and cha-cha... they all feature a heaping dose of vocalists. Vocals may be an important part of the tradition, though it's the instrumentalists that appeal to this writer, and I'm happy to report that there are a few bands out there struggling to make it in an all-instrumental Latin vein.

Most of these groups have succeeded in combining Latin rhythms (especially the five-beat clave patters) with jazz repertoire and harmonies to create what we call “Latin jazz.” Some well-recognized names in this genre include Chucho Valdes and his group Irakere, Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, Michel Camilo’s trio, Paquito D’Rivera’s group, and Dave Samuels’ various incarnations of the Caribbean Jazz Project. Most jazz lovers will attest to this music’s broad appeal since it is heavy on both the jazz and the Latin beat.

I recently caught up with a guy whose name and day job do not suggest in the slightest that he would be pursuing the leadership of a kick-ass Latin jazz group. Joe McCarthy is a principal percussionist in the Naval Academy Band stationed at Annapolis, MD. His Navy duties include playing at military functions, graduations, and anything else that goes on around town. A graduate of the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music and the University of North Texas, this percussionist is no amateur when it comes to Latin jazz. He is steeped in the tradition but is also trying to chart his own path with a fine group of local players, several of whom are also “service cats.” Here is Joe McCarthy in his own words:

AAJ: You grew up in Connecticut. I assume you weren’t listening to Afro-Cuban music as a kid. Tell me how you got from the life of a regular Connecticut kid to where you are now.

JM: Well, my high school band director, who I’m still very close with. His name is Carl Coomy. And uh, he’d always have jazz music playing in the band room, you know between classes and whatnot. And that’s what really got me started as far as jazz. My mother had a great record collection. She had all these old Ellington records and Errol Garner records and stuff and I used to check out all that stuff. I didn’t really seriously get into it until...(trails off on a long tangent). Anyways I didn’t decide until – I believe it was the end of my junior year in high school – that I wanted to go into music school, which my parents were a little freaked out about. So I went to the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut and began studying there. From there I went to the University of North Texas and did my masters.

AAJ: When you were at Hartt, who were your teachers?

JM: My path was somewhat different than what it is I’m doing now. I was actually playing as a classical percussionist. I did play drum set and stuff. But I would say that my real emphasis when I got there, was trying to get the classical thing together and I studied with a great teacher named Alexander Lipak, who ran the department and was a world-famous timpanist, percussionist, and educator. But I also began to study with Ed Soph on the side who was the drummer with Woody Herman for many years and countless others. He was the one who really started perking my interest in the drum set.

AAJ: Wasn’t he down at North Texas though?

JM: Well later and that’s the reason I went down there. When I studied with him, he had been living in Connecticut for quite a while. He used to come up and teach at a drum shop in Weathersfield. I would study with him once a week and then he’d go play with a big band on Monday nights nearby and I would go check him out – he is just a fantastic player. We became pretty close while I was an undergrad.

So when I got outta school it’s like “What am I gonna do next?” And he said “Why don’t you come down here?” So I went there and it just kinda went from there. The Latin thing was...I always enjoyed the music but it was never the main focus at that time. One of the guys that I went to Hartt with though, is the person who really got me into Latin music. He’s a guy by the name of Ed Fast. The title track of our new CD Encarnación , is one of Ed’s originals.

AAJ: Who are some of the artists he turned you on to?

JM: One person he was turned me on to Cal Tjader. Ed plays a lot of vibes. He’s transcribed tons of Cal stuff.

AAJ: And you have several of Cal’s tunes in Afro-Bop Alliance’s book.

JM: Yep. Ed also was the first one to turn me on to Fort Apache. Being from the Hartford scene with Jackie McLean and Steve Davis, there was a big Art Blakey influence goin’ on up there and you can hear that in our band with the three-horn front line. That was definitely an influence. So it’s just basically taking that...I mean that’s really what we’re trying to do.

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