Category: big band

Let’s make a production out of the mistletoe melee, shall we.

Piano bar noodling can cover a lot of octaves. Jazz clanker, Trevor McShane is all over the place with “Too Much of Me (Mistletoe Song).” Now remember, jazz is not the wrong notes–it’s the notes you feel.

Travis Cloer amps up the orchestration with “(Baby It’s Cold) Under the Mistletoe.” What a show stopper! Or a door stopper, it’s pretty dense.

Hey, what about classics! Margret Whiting leads the band with “The Mistletoe Kiss.” It’s 1940s fun for all ages (well mostly under 12).

Dick Robertson with his orchestra swing and big band the olden days with “Meet Me Under the Mistletoe.” It’s like a whole afternoon of entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpLZTHrgO9Q

Most of the Xmas songs for soldiers are weepy numbers about little children missing Daddy (and Mommy) serving their country. It’s helped make us great.

Big Daddy Weave cleans up here with “I’ll Be Brave this Christmas.” Standard CW fare. But i’m not sure about pairing tank fire shots with invocation of JC’s name.

The Song Trust trowels it on with “Bring Him Home Santa.” The kid don’t want no gifts–only Daddy! C’mon, Santa. God didn’t answer my calls!

Did i saw Mommies too? Bernie Williams sings country about crying without and dancing with Mom. So, he says in “Santa I’m Writing This Letter.” By the way, his wish for his solja mama matters more than other kids’ wishes.

This is not a new notion, Vera Lynn sings us a story about the WWII era little boy who tells her “I’m Sending a Letter to Santa Claus.” Same old story, big band glory.

At times, kids like to inappropriately mash up urban hip hop with the childhood innocence of Christmas time. “The Legion of Elves” is a rap from Robby the Elf. It’s Atlanta on trial for delivering gifts. Weird computer graphics.

Tomo News goes even more animated with “Get Your Elf On.” The elves here use spit magic, create product placement crap, and Do The Elf Dance. Oh yeah and they electro solve all the world’s problems. Creepy ‘Polar Express’ graphics here.

“The Elf Jump” comes from that unfortunate Golden Films about The Shoemaker and Santa. But it jumps and jives and has a 1940s good time. Credit Diane Eskanazi for the cool tune, if not the awkward animation.

Is the year-long carol search a fool’s errand? Christmas in the summertime?!

Bah & The Humbugs acknowledge that Christmas in July is a time honored measure of the furthest away you can get from the cool thing. But August?! Perhaps it is best explained in plain song: “Christmas in July (In August).”

The ridiculousness is forced when Gabe Bondoc sings his hit ‘Summertime’ with the words “Christmas Time” substituted. Not that funny. No one in the audience is laughing, anyway.

The unlikelihood is further explored as impossibly found love, in psychedelic motown no less, by The One with “Christmas in the Summertime.”

Even all the way back to the 1940s Joe Reichman and Orchestra remind us that “A Christmas Song in Summertime” is the oxymoron of the year. Impossible love, again. Could be Marion Shaw on vocals.

Well, we’ve had some fun with the animal kingdom this month, but please remember where it all began: in the back of the barn. Let’s look at bunches of animals altogether now.

“The Animals Christmas Song” is another Chipmunks ripoff, and from all i can tell, was actually recorded by Santa’s Pixie Helpers. It’s the tortured rhymes of names of animals with Christmas items that keeps on giving.

“Carol of the Beasts” by Pete Seger mournfully strums through the manger’s menagerie, but in a folktastic way.

With his more modern maundering, Sufjan Stevens guides us through his version of “The Friendly Beasts.” Jesus’ beast-bro hoe down.

Tru Harmony swings and sways–mostly on key–with “Song of the Christmas Animals (Don’t Forget about Me).” Like Christ would forget that one lamb there.

I find the true spirit of the manger in the mangey tomfoolery of Spike Jones (featuring the Bell Sisters) syncopating “Barnyard Christmas.” Try to keep up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40dlPSHFB3M

1952 begins with a new Queen for England and ends with a war hero for U.S. President. In-between are military coups for Cuba and Egypt. Although, we did beat the Russkis in the Helsinki Olympics (barely). George Jorgensen lost to Christine Jorgenson this year as well (if ya know whut ah mean).

The top o’ the charts also tells a battlesome tale. Consider this playlist as a searing love lorn plot: “You Belong to Me” “Here in My Heart;” “Why Don’t You Believe,” “Blue Tango,” “Cry,” “I Went to Your Wedding,” “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart.” Those darn kids and their over-emotional tunes!

In Adult Town, where the real wars are made, we denially lounge to sweet, brisk, bouncy bands.

Spike Jones is still filling ballrooms. Here he is with his band and ‘Winter‘ (check out the cool Frisky Frolics cartoon with it!).

Okay, sometimes we had a couple too many and we get a little maudlin and we start singing too loudly about the past, like Don Cornell and orchestra with “Let’s Have an Old Fashioned Christmas.” Hic, hoo boy.

No no no, no more negativity. This is the Year of Norman Vincent Peale and Positive Thinking.  We have to Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye! Chins up! Toes pointed! Marching music, please, maestro! “All Around the Christmas Tree.”

As we enter our decade of prosperity and white picket fences, we still cling to our golden past of victory and nationalism. The big band dance music continues, but feels a little more jazzy. Louis Jordan and his Orchestra bless us with “May Every Day be Christmas.” It’s a thick coating of brass with a cheap organ flourish.

The Four Aces, about to become teen idols, record “There’s a Christmas Tree in Heaven” an Eddy Howard and his orchestra number. It’s a criminal move by their manager.

We continue fighting with the future by sounding like the past with thoughts of our boys on the front lines in Korea. PFC Eddie Fisher sings from there “Christmas Eve in My Home Town” complete with radio show introduction by the crooner.

Cool Tommy (‘It’s All in the Game’) Edwards is keeping it white with “Christmas is for Children,” although i would not play this dreamy, greasy night club nostalgia for children.

The worst of the running-in-place problems is the nepotism of Bing Crosby’s son, Lindsay (no, it only sounds like a daughter), warbling at thirteen years old here with “Dear Mister Santa Claus.” He later went on to form The Crosby Boys with his brothers and play night clubs and drink heavily. These boys mostly committed suicide.

Okay, my novelty search still loves to find the kooky and comedic and childish. 1950 is AFTER most of the Spike Jones holiday hoo-ha, and the sensation of Yogi Yorgesson and his Scandihoovian shenanigans. But it still sought out gleeful oddities.

Funnyman Jimmy Durante begins Act III of his career with his first TV show in 1950. But his “Christmas Wish” featured in a meh movie called The Great Rupert and run on his new show reminded us that vaudeville died kicking and screaming for the Ol’ Schnozzola.

The most popular girl group of the first half of the XXth Century were beloved but not taken too seriously. Laverne, Maxene, and Patty gave us ‘jump blues’ and iconic songs like ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.’ While The Andrews Sisters’ ‘I’d Like to Hitch a Ride with Santa Claus‘ is not a ha-ha novelty song, it’s a cute kiddie tune–okay maybe a bit melancholy.

Let’s arm twist the year to find something truly irreverent and comic! Oh–i know, Ella Fitzgerald! The First Lady of Song was one of those talent show winners who elbowed her way into the Apollo in the ’30s with her own vocal gifts. By the ’40s she was dropping her regular band with Chick Webb, going jazz, and even sang a song in an Abbott and Costello movie. Her 1950 song “Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney” made little waves in her burgeoning career, but according to a fellow Xmas music blogger on hip christmas, it became a naughty anthem and re-releases may have been blocked by Lady Ella who didn’t see its sexuality when she first recorded it. (Although i find it more Clarence Carter anal, than Ertha Kitt missionary.) Explicate the imagery at your own prudish peril!