If you enjoy instrumental jazz and Christmas music, you might enjoy
The Best Jazz Christmas Record You've Never Heard. "
"Christmas With The Believers" turned out to be the best jazz Christmas music I had ever heard, and that's still the case today. I'll take the imaginative arrangements, chops, tight playing, and sense of swing on this recording over anything I've heard by the legends in this field." It's
presented here as a cassette recording from Fall '86, with Donny Schwekendiek on piano, Neal Heidler on the bass and Narry Puhlovski on the drums.
posted by filthy light thief
on Dec 21, 2011 -
26 comments
When most folks think of "Christmas music" it's doubtful that their next thought will be "the blues", but along with "my baby" or "bad luck" or "leavin' in the morning", bluesmen have long included Christmas as lyric inspiration. Which bluesmen? Well...
Sonny Boy Williamson,
Freddie King,
Blind Blake,
John Lee Hooker,
Lightnin' Hopkins,
Little Milton,
B.B. King,
Smokey Hogg,
Charley Jordan, and last but certainly not least, one of the most influential early bluesmen,
Blind Lemon Jefferson.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Dec 20, 2011 -
23 comments
Twenty-Five Semi-Obscure Traditional Christmas Songs as Performed by Famous and Non-Famous People:
1.
The Coventry Carol. Celebrate the end of Christmas with this cheerful song about infants being murdered by a paranoid monarch. Actually quite beautiful. As performed by
Sting,
Joan Baez,
John Denver,
Nox Arcana,
Loreena McKennitt,
Manheim Steamroller,
Alison Moyet,
Annie Lennox and the African Children's Choir,
Sufjan Stevens,
Hayley Westenra,
The Mediaeval Baebes,
Dinah Shore, and t
he Westminster Cathedral Choir.
[more inside]
posted by kittenmarlowe
on Dec 11, 2011 -
29 comments
This is surely, without question, the best interpretation of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" ever recorded. The
best. Merry Christmas!
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Dec 25, 2010 -
24 comments
Midwest label
Suburban Sprawl puts out a CD of X-Mas music every winter. They've collected the last eight years of them
here. Highlights include The High Strung, The Hard Lessons, and the common lament, "Santa Just Crashed Into My House and He's Drunk as Fuck."
posted by klangklangston
on Dec 1, 2010 -
16 comments
We're mostly pretty familiar, I guess, with the ol'
rum pa pum pum of the
Little Drummer Boy. He shows up every Christmas,
marching drum slung round his waist,
rat-a-tat-tatting for the Son of God, thanks to that familiar song about him. A catchy little tune it is, too... heck,
David Bowie and Bing Crosby think so! Let's keep in mind, though, that back when a certain Holy Infant made his first grand appearance at a stable back in Bethlehem, any little drummer boy that might've serenaded him wouldn't have been playing any
paradiddles or ratamacues. Nah, he'd have been laying down beats more like
this, or
this, or (from actual
boys),
this. I think the baby Jesus would've dug the groove, too. Merry Christmas, y'all!
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Dec 24, 2009 -
32 comments
For many, this time of year brings to mind
George Frideric Handel's masterpiece
"Messiah" - a three part oratorio for orchestra, chorus and soloists.
For many,
the holiday season has not begun until the local Messiah Sing-Along. (
Need a score to sing along? It's always a good idea to check the Choral Public Domain Library! And before you go, make sure you're ready with a handy - and hilarious -
quiz!) But the Messiah narrative has much less to do with that omnipresent, tacit, eponymous character and much more to do with the shared and often painful condition of the human family and our attempts to understand and commune with the universe. Director Claus Guth has staged the oratorio using a setting that mirrors that experience: a funeral.
[Clips of that performance within.] [more inside]
posted by greekphilosophy
on Dec 22, 2009 -
19 comments
Every so often, the Opie and Anthony radio show run a Homeless Shopping Spree, where they take some homeless people off the streets and take them out to an upscale mall to buy clothes for them. This year, a man who calls himself Mustard mentioned to them that he used to be a musician, so
they gave him a guitar.
posted by flatluigi
on Dec 12, 2009 -
66 comments
Almost no traditional Christmas carols were written by Jews (though there have
been rumors). But sometimes it seems like almost all the best 20th century Christmas songs were. Many people are
dimly aware of this, but few know its full extent. I have compiled a list, with representative performances.
[more inside]
posted by grobstein
on Dec 13, 2008 -
67 comments
