Category: jazz

After months of gnoshing, got milk? water? iced tea? Jolt cola? Most beverages around the holidays are alcoholic. We’ll get to that. Let’s hold off as long as we can with other drinkables traditional enough to provoke singing.

Actually the whole milk thing gets old fast. Please dismiss “The Gilmer Dairy Farm Christmas Song” as just another mediocre attempt to cash in on ‘Jingle Bells.’  I was impressed, however, that it went more than one verse, and emphasized how good Santa was at ‘squeezin’ teats.’ Three years after that Farmer Gilmer returns hocking milk with “Have a Dairy, Merry Christmas!” He’s working social media, with scat, close ups of cud chewing, an good ol’ boy Alabama charm. (Watch out for the Peanuts scripture postscript.) There’s worse out there. Be satisfied that milk co-starred with cookies back in April on this blog and let it be.

Cocoa is a better topic for potable poetry. It’s what kids get when they’re good, it’s cold, and it’s not time for presents yet–shaddup and drink!

The Von Trapp Children (their descendants actually) sing “Hot Cup of Cocoa” pretty much like every chorale group in high school ever did. Bouncy fun to impress nonagenarians. (If that sounds snarky, refer to one of the many videos entertaining the retired troops at a nearby rest home overseen by The Holley Sisters. Is it just me?)

A bit more on fleek would be Canote and DeVore rap battling “The Hot Cocoa Song.” Okay, it’s not holiday-related.

Who cares! Warbling about warm chocolate in a cup is a propos of Xmas as sure as squawking about snow. Hannah Jackson (an X-Factor finalist!) and Amy Faris heat up the mugging with a jazzy “Hot Chocolate.” Ba-doop-ba-bee!

What about those other awkward bits on the Christmas cookie plate?

Gingerbread is not just a cookie! Richard Graham explores the architectural possibilities for the holidays with “Gingerbread House” a singing tutorial. What’s the kiddies’ mortgage on that playful dough?

Fudge can be overlooked for weeks on the great Advent platter and still be just as good! This number comes with a long spoken exposition, like those end-of-the-world movies. It’s a folk epic about a dead grandmother’s gift. “The Christmas Fudge” may haunt you, or you can skip it.

Leslie Adams screams “No Fudge for Christmas” meaning no treats of any kind in a house gone healthy. A fun song concept, but the voice changer was cranked up to whiny so… yeah.

Bonnie Legion brings us back to cookies, but this time they’re alive! Don’t bite them! Aiee! Wait–is that early Twentieth Century jazz/ragtime?! What a great “Christmas Cookie Song” almost ruined with video-making and special effects.

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.”