It’s somewhat amazing really, we as a culture have an entire repertoire of songs dedicated to the “Christmas” season. Heck, multiple cultures have songs only played at this time of year. By the actual Christmas holiday, we’re also all largely sick of every single one of these songs.
So while I want to take this evening to listen to some of my favorites before I get to the point where I want to shoot myself if I hear another Christmas song, I also want to celebrate some of the best known jazz ever recorded. And some great Rock and Roll Xmas tunes as well!
It’s Christmas Time Charlie Brown!
Greetings, welcome, and Happy Holidays. Normally I post a diary about Jazz and related genres every Sunday around 10pm EST. Today is a bit heavy on “related genres”. Partly too, I was away much of this week and wanted to do something a bit “easier”.
Though I spent a good deal of time this week thinking about how music contains elements of and keeps us connected to aspects of the past. This happens on different levels and certainly does occur on a level of “tradition.” But something deeper is going on, which I’m trying to figure out how to articulate. But do remember that while some songs are remembered through tradition and/or nostalgia, some of those same songs are possibly the intellectual and artistic creation of significant historical figures…even Henry the VIII
(It is possible, though unverified, that Henry the VIII wrote Greensleeves)
But that over intellectualizes things….and I love Christmas songs! So let’s have some fun….
Many of us associate Christmas time with childhood memories and a lot of my Christmas childhood memories connect to music. Most specifically to my Grandmother’s record collection. If she hadn’t like Liberace so much, my father’s life and consequently mine may have gone a little differently—Liberace being the reason why my grandmother got my father piano lessons. But Liberace didn’t sing and I liked the records with voices on them and for as long as I can remember I have loved both of these songs and adored the sound of the voices of both these men.
Such a smooth voice. But while Mathis isn’t really a jazz singer, Nat King Cole certainly is….
With so many Christmas Carols either from the 19th century or from 30s and 40s, many lend themselves to jazz interpretations. This is one of my favorites….
And of course many of the composers of the “Great American Songbook” wrote Christmas songs (and let’s not forget that many of those composers were actually Jewish!)….
The Christmas Waltz written by Sammy Cahn
It’s no surprise that many of our pop stars record Christmas songs…
This next one was my late (paternal) Grandfather's favorite song. He passed in 03, but my grandmother died in 1979. Something about this song reminded him of her and this dorky little song will cause me to tear up every year. Nostalgia is potent.
Moving on....One of the fun things about Christmas songs to me is seeing how folks interpret various tunes. Some can be arranged is fantastic ways.
Which brings us to the point that I love rock and roll Christmas songs.
Hmmm….I wonder if The Boss listened to Phil Spector much…..
But perhaps the best part of Christmas music is the yearly event that began as Rock music exploded and Jazz was still sort of “popular” music. In 1965. That’s right, the vast majority of everyone in the United States has probably heard the following Jazz music....
Vince Guaraldi, July 17, 1928 – February 6, 1976, came to fame performing with Cal Tjader in the 1950s
In 1962 he released “Cast Your Fate Into the Wind” which won the 1963 Grammy for best Original Jazz Composition.
Based on this success, he was contracted write music for the Peanuts cartoons. In the process he wrote two beautiful jazz Christmas songs
Here’s the “New Age” pianist George Winston playing Vince’s other great Christmas song, Skating
There are many elements to “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” that have endeared so to the American public. There are very few television specials shown yearly in primetime on a major network for 49 consecutive years. But the music plays its role in making it a touchstone cartoon to show….year after year…..
Still, I don’t care what people say, Rock and Roll is here to stay. Let’s go across the pond……..
I’m sure many can agree with this sentiment….
OK…….14 year olds today dig Bieber and Cyrus (Bill Hicks was right, BTW) and probably a whole lot of stuff I never heard before…“Lorde” is Randy Marsh, right?....but when I was 14, I liked Emerson Lake and Palmer.
I enjoy the classical elements ELP incorporated into their music, even if Keith kinda was Liberace for the baby boomer generation.
In recent years, I discovered a 70s rock band I largely missed growing up. In fact, now that Rush is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I’m totally on the bandwagon to get this band into Hall of Fame. I think the stats are they had more number one hits in Europe during the 1970s than any pop act expect ABBA. From what I understand, this song can give people nightmares in the UK because they hear it too much. But I do not ever remember hearing it on any New York/New Jersey rock radio station at Xmas time. I discovered it 9 years ago after hearing it in the background of the Doctor Who Xmas special (the one that introduced David Tennant) and I thought "Is that Slade?"
Merry Christmas Everybody
Slade are quite influential. Kiss, Cheap Trick…a host of “power pop” bands can trace their roots back to Slade. And they pretty much are Spinal Tap. Once in the 70s they were due to fly from the UK to California and then go onto Australia. The lead guitarist questioned why fly all the way (west) to California to then turn around and fly (east) to Australia. The band’s manager had to remind him that the world was round.
Many know Slade because of “Cum on Feel the Noize” or “Mama, We’re all Crazy Now”…including them in a diary with Coltrane clips feels almost sacrilegious. But in their day, they were a good band.
That’s the great Noddy Holder singing lead and looking like a character out of Dickens. A celebrity in the UK, few in the US would recognize him walking down the street.
Quick detour back to the States. I’m only going to post a few more rock xmas songs and I wanted to get in the one that for years was part of a "game" I would play with radio in my car. The game was to have heard the ELP tune and this next one on the radio by Xmas. Sometimes hearing the ELP Father Xmas song is easy, and sometimes the timing is off. But this next one tends to be a bit more rare….and at times has expressed my overall feelings about the Holiday.
Youtube has made my radio game irrelevant. Any song, on demand. It’s got to be overwhelming organizing this stuff in your head if you are 15 year old future professional musicians with access to this amazing database.
Now on the one hand…..Hey Fox News et al…look! A liberal who keeps talking about Christmas and saying Christmas and stuffs! And on the other hand….I spent a lot of time as a child in Paterson NJ, but I really grew up in the suburbs of Bergen County. In grade school we sang Dreidel songs. And at one point they even put a stop to the school having the kids sing any Holiday songs with direct religious references….like circa 1977. And I cannot remember one Christian kid having an issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out that some families moaned and complained, but this was also before Ray-Gun, before Saddam, before the Clintons, before W, before Fox. At least half the town was Jewish…it made sense and felt fair. We sang the songs that referenced Jesus and such after 3pm and on the weekends. Dreidel too.
So in the spirit of the Holiday season…..this song is funny….(you can post South Park's Dreidel in the comments if you wish)
And let’s not forget this song exists…
What is fun too is how songs from “A Sound of Music” have become associated with Xmas. So if one has a jazz gig at a restaurant at xmas time….the sort of gigs that have largely disappeared in the last 10 years…you can play this next one and it will be considered a Holiday Song…..
A few more….There is one song that is the favorite of many many people.
But in the post-Vietnam era, I suggest the greatest Christmas Song written and produced is the following: “Fairytale of New York”.
There is an involved history to that song. It’s a lesson in composition. It was written over a two year time span. Getting the late Kirsty MacColl to sing on it was a challenge as she had severe performance anxiety and recorded her parts…I think…in her bathroom. Kirsty had a hit with Billy Bragg’s “New England” in the 80s.
She was killed by a power boat while swimming with her children in Mexico in 2000. She was 41. I love her voice and it’s a shame she didn’t record with The Pogues more.
Fairytale of New York itself hit #2 on the UK pop charts when it was released in 1987, held off the top spot by the Pet Shop Boys. No offense is intended on my part by the obvious use of the word “f*gg*t” in the song. It’s a dialog between two working class Irish-Americans in New York City. The brief brutal language is an attempt to accurately depict the working class Irish-American immigrant spirit…which it does. Fighting and insulting your family members at Christmas time in inappropriate ways while drunk is an Anglophone tradition.
But no mention of The Pogues is complete without mentioning the great drunken Shane MacGowen, lead singer of the band.
Disclosure—on me mother’s side, the family hails from County Cork in Ireland. Though we’ve been here in the USA since the first famine wave in the 1840s. The family can also trace our history back to an Elizabethan Squire who lost land and title for refusing to covert from Catholicism to the Church of England. Either too old or too young to have fought and died in the Civil War, the family name has thrived in the USA and I have a retired General as an Uncle, cousins who were VPs for Sony or married into Google, and my mom is rather convinced a certain head of a certain “Catholic League” is her cousin. While being “Irish-American” is largely irrelevant to my daily life, Irish things do sometimes spark my interest.
But of course Irish Balladeers are somewhat removed from American Jazz music…..
and here's Miles' contribution to the Xmas repertoire (recorded in 62)
Thanks for listening everyone. Back to “Jazz” next week. Please support your local jazz musicians and all local live music! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! What's your favorite Jazz, Rock, R&B, or Traditional Christmas/Holiday song?