Category: jazz

Baby It’s cold: 1959 welcome to the mad future

1959 begins with Communism taking over Cuba, so we make Alaska and (then later) Hawaii states. The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly go down in flames, so we launch the first successful ICBM. This is the year of the first Barbie doll, the first plain paper (Xerox) copier, the first man-made object landing (crashing) on the moon, the first living things returning from space alive (monkeys), and pantyhose. The biggest hits in music are ‘Mack the Knife,’ ‘The Battle of New Orleans,’ and ‘Personality.’ As busy as the world is getting with progress, the music is all over the place. It’s a madhouse.

R&B almost legend Jesse Blevins cowrote ‘Earth Angel’ (shh, it’s a lawsuit!). His gentle ballad “I Want You with Me, Christmas” comes from his only album Guess Who? as he was killed in a car wreck shortly after. The day lots of the music died, i guess.

Give the ladies a chance. And, i mean, Lady. All around icon, Pearl Bailey, strutted her stuff radio, stage, screen, TV, and record album from the ’30s into the 70’s gracefully. Her wow-factor is never more apparent than in “Five Pound Box of Money:” a fine gift no matter how you wrap it.

The Anita Kerr Singers’ “Christmas is the Day” is a little tiajuana brassy, but even more a snoozey stew of lazy harmony. We will have easy listening with us always.

Dinah Washington makes the story of “Ole Santa” a sad ole ‘cuz-Mama-sez lecture to dumb kids who don’t know what’s coming Christmas Eve. It’s scary how square she is.

Gracie Fields sings “Little Donkey” like she’s pep-talking those dumb manger mutts into getting into character for their screen test with the Savior Bairn. So kinda funny.

Yet another Bing Crosby musical for the holidays (‘Say One for Me’) dropped “The Secret of Christmas” without making the splash past numbers had–it sounds like your square dad so much that square dads didn’t buy it. Check out Mina’s version with the cool jazz combo behind her faux Judy Garland sirening. Oh yeah, and there’s Ella Fitzgerald adding a shivering amount of soul to her rendition.

Ray Conniff made the glee sound out of the big band sound. His first album (this year) went platinum and earned him a grammy. So, out pops a Christmas disk by The Ray Conniff Singers with this creepy, stalker-y bit of whimsy: “Christmas Bride.” Please, don’t play this at your wedding.

Brooke Benton, another Nat King Cole clone, hit hard on the R&B chart with ‘It’s Just a Matter of time’ (last year) and ‘Baby(You’ve got what It Takes)’ (this year).  “This Time of the Year” showcases his elegant, non-threatening pretty vocals, allowing black men to sing the soundtrack of romance.

Adult music this year is starting to get good and weird. So check out the early electronica lounge music of Esquivel! and his “Jingle Bells.” The future is here and it’s STRANGE!

 

 

Died. You’re Welcome: the tree

What else does death on Xmas put us in the mind for? Oh yeah, tree sacrifice!

Naturally, Bob Rivers lyrically plays out this deforestational dirge with his instrumental (a chainsaw solo!) “O Christmas Tree.” Message much, Bobby boy?

I’ve already referenced the more expose-styled “Kill a Tree for Christ” last Christmas Day. But the subject of whimsically cut down trees live on in Screaming Headless Torsos’ “Dead Christmas Trees.” (We’ll cover The holy symbol of the evergreen another time–it’s just their deaths concern us for now.)

SHT just dropped their odd new album a year ago, but this 2011 single marked an end to the five-year drought of releases for this south of the border touring group. It’s good stuff (and the video is branches of fun), but is it jazz?

BLUE ALERT: flatulence (5)

As we finish arguing over who dealt it, let’s consider the prospect of God himself. Fallible now in human form, he might be prone to “letting a badger loose.”

Andy Dick and the Bitches of the Century discuss with “Colicky Jesus.” (Available on the Kevin and Bean: The Real Slim Santa album.)

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BLUE ALERT: flatulence (3)

Kids love to play. With their toys. With parental limits. With musical instruments. Heaven knows, i was there when Mike And John and Henry and all crashed together stringed instruments, strummed on percussive pieces and wailed Off Key about existential angst.

Here, another young collective (without appropriate supervision) chant their mystical noel “Giant Farting Christmas Tree.” Note the wiccan placement of musical supplicants as if to call forth Bloody Mary herself. Then get your naughty groove on.

A Month of Love: Pamela Hines

Well, it’s a major holiday in my household, Oregon Statehood Day.

Kidding, we live on love here, my babies. And the little woman likes the candles lit, the clothes a bit formal, the cuisine impeccable, and the music mysteriously sensual. (She calls it ‘belly rubbing music.’ That’s a slow dance reference, y’all.)

So here, to set your mood aflame, is Pamela Hines with “Christmas Love.”

A Month of Love: Billie Holiday

Eleanora Fagan was a teenager smack in the middle of the Harlem Renaissance. Her friends called her ‘Lady Day,’ but we loved her as Billie Holiday. She was a jazz icon of the XX Century. If you don’t know who she was (you may even mistake her for Diana Ross) or her sadly typical fate, shame on you.

Here is a Christmas classic, though hardly a carol: “I”ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” Everybody does this. Kay Starr has a weird remix, Ella powers it, Frank snoozes through it, Dean-o  copies that, Tony B. mugs it, Doris D. vamps it (really!), Judy G. stomps on it, Bette M. sounds more like Billie, and the Mills Brothers croon it. Sure there’re more. Who cares? I’ve got my Billie to keep me warm.

(There’s a better Billie Holiday hi fidelity recording from 1955, but this 1937 torch burning gives you a better hint of her siren’s power.)

State Twenty-Six: Minnesota

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Honestly, I thought I’d find more Garrison Keillor. Flipping through my collection and browsing the ‘tube I can find NO cute parodies from his radio show Prairie Home Companion with the names Minnesota, Minneapolis, or St. Paul featured for Xmas. Share if you can find any.
If that’s what you were hoping for I’ll recommend a ‘tube tune the author of which I cannot find. bombocjk1 has posted his “Minnesota Christmas” as revelation of his family’s rituals with reverential as well as wry observations paired with a wicked slide show. It’s honest and humorous and the melody is from a Finnish traditional song–dirge, dirge, baby. Totally adds to the solemnity. Good ‘un.
The Female Quartet of Southern Gospel Music sings “A Minnesota Christmas” about The Advent in the middle of a mall in case you forgot all that God’s son aborning and stuff while you were looking for bargains. Beautiful harmonizing, if not proselytizing.
For upbeat and folksy we look to Sam Begich who recorded harmony with his sis in Switzerland to compile a cute family memories album “(We Miss Our) Minnesota Christmas.” Wizard, guys! Ups to your and your aw-shucks technological fun.
Now, there was almost no way I woulda stretched my criteria to include Tom Waits‘s “A Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis.” MN deserves better than that. Though, I do admit, Neko Case sirens up a version that’s almost pretty (from a Tom Waits tribute album entitled New Coat of Paint.)
My favorite, by a hair, would be Twin Cities Jewfolk’s “A Minnesota Christmas.” It’s bouncy party froth with that alluring cross-culture tease at its edges. Plus which this video was a fundraiser for good causes. ‘Tis the season, celebrants.

 

State Fourteen: North Carolina

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
I gotta tell ya. The Carolinas are worse than the Dakotas for differentiating the holiday music scene. Most songs don’t name N or S, but maintain a solidarity that all yall outsiders won’t get.
Check out Austin Rudy’s “Carolina Christmas.” It’s all USA-centric and too little ’bout states rights. Briana Atwell also sings (her original) “Carolina Christmas” available as a charity fund raiser on iTunes. Slurry blues tells it like it came upon a midnight clear. Even more romantically adult is the Marshall Tucker Band’s brassy disco-edged country version “Christmas in Carolina.” It’s slipperier ‘n a Swiss Colony sausage basket. Charlie Daniels & Friends narrates “A Carolina Christmas Carol” on his album Joy to the World: A Bluegrass Christmas. He’s trying to recapture childhood wonder about the no-snow South, but it’s just old folks’ talk (for over 16 minutes). Not A Song. Martin GT Middle School Choral Department finally has an angelic-sounding selection entitled “Carolina Christmas.” That should get you back on track for the season.
My pick of the “Carolina Christmas”es is by Squirrel Nut Zippers. Legend holds a man who drank potent moonshine (Nut Zipper) wound up climbed up a tree and was dubbed ‘Squirrel.’ These nutballs (there have been eighteen different band mates over the decades) wail with their eclectic fusion of Delta blues, gypsy jazz, 1930s-era swing, klezmer, etc (it’s on Wikipedia). Their Xmas album (Christmas Caravan) is a tradition ’round here, but don’t look for them on tour–they are been there done that so over they’re under clover. Their website has been dormant over a year now. Go, 1990s cat, go.