Category: jazz

The party’s started! But some of you wallflowers need pointers.

Aretha’s got you! “Kissing by the Mistletoe” lays it out, complete with mwah! sounds. Some tortured rhyming, but dig that declamatory early ’60s rock!

What this song needs is a Latin beat. Joe Williams sets the salsa to medium/hot with his 9th grade teacher explanations with his “Kissing by the Mistletoe.”

But I’m going to play with some amateurs, so let’s start with semi-pro Catherine Lorentzen doing her sultry home school spin on this seductive song with the fam.

“Mistletoe is Poison.” There i said it. Noella McCoy sings it. Bah and the Humbugs created it. You listen to it. Then feel soulfully sad. ‘Kay?

Wait–the flag is not only for the military war complex! It’s there for America!

A “Red, White, and Blue Christmas” describes Dottie Swan’s reaction to her country torn apart from warfare. This ’70s country treacle tells a lonely story.

Ronnie McDowell answers the question why the flag is next to his Christmas tree in “Red, White, and Blue Christmas.” It’s cornball pop country (there’s an eagle in there, too), but God was born today for a reason ( …for the USA).

Annie Moses Band trills over churchy jazz seeming to include all of us–everyone–in their “Red, White, and Blue Christmas.” Thank you, guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1n2nc47qLw

Blues informs Jimmy Liggins and His Drops of Joy’s list: you want that woman, you know you do. So low, when you don’t even want the turkey for Christmas, Jimmy. He just wants her loving’. “I Want My Baby for Christmas.” Might wanna top off that Scotch, first.

‘Smatter, that too harmonious for you? You want down and dirty blues? Back behind the Dumpster blues? Smokey Hogg knows how you feel. “I Want My Baby for Christmas” is not want he needs–it’s what he wants. Listen to that piano, you’ll feel it too.

The Dramatics switch it up to R+B. But “All I Want for Christmas is My Baby” smacks of begging. Sounding like your thirteen may not get you where you want, fellas.

Seductive like a velvet=wrapped parcel, studio jazz cool-man John Jay Martyn croak-croons “I Just Want My Baby for Christmas.” This is how you get that baby, kids.

Stylized marches or cakewalks from the 1890s and since have featured ragged syncopation. Ragtime music usually results in swing dancing. (I recommend doing the robot.)

The Heftone Banjo Orchestra (featuring Brian Heffernan) really brings out the complex footwork with their “Santa Claus Rag.”

Country Joe and the Fish attempt to add a message in their “Dirty Claus Rag.”

He sees you when you’re– everything.

Santa seems to be at least a part-time spy, and i’ve got the intel to prove it.

Of course Ray Stevens blurted out this truth back in 1962: “Santa Claus is Watching You.” But that may have been a warning to a straying girlfriend.

Stephanie Riggio for Truthdig (a subsidiary of Anonymous) clues us in on what’s really going on with “Spying Claus.” But you probably already knew that.

Completely unmasking the Claus, the ACLU posts “The NSA is Coming to Town.” Santa is really a code name for the entire department. Listen quick before it’s redacted. Or click the link to these guys… i’m sure it’s safe.

I’d rather think of Santa as a cool secret agent who finds out what he needs to by doing his job. Call me an old romantic, but Rosie Flores knows what i’m talking about. She redefines “Secret Santa.”