Category: jazz

Hammered for the High Holidays

Most Christmas drinking goes right for the gusto, full mental jacked-up.

But at least one little ditty or two can remember what it’s like to be just a little lit.

Lt. Col. Mike Dickinson stairways us to heaven with his “Holiday Song.” It’s for the boys, so be cool. Five minutes in he’s doing stand up. (You might skip the next song about a flashing sgt.)

Honey Honey uses jazz and a long list of cocktails to slur verisimilitude into “Christmas Tipsy.” Could you hand me that again? Whoops. Gettin’ sexy now.

Drink N.B. Merry: wine, just

Toast Noel! But with what beverage? I’ve been fermenting over this a while, and let’s whine about the adult grape drink not address’d ’til now.

Ziggy Rankin may be metaphorical here, singing about a girl, but riddim is riddim. In “Caroline (Sweetest Wine)” the music moves the way winos believe they do when fortified with sippage.

Promising title–“The Ultimate Last Wine Song 2016,” but it turns out the Norwich tavern The Last Wine Bar is merely musically Xmas card-ing their patrons online. Damn skippy talented song, though.

Canada’s own The Yule Be Sorrys contextualize the consumption with their own update on ‘Holly and Ivy’ with “The Sherry and the Claret” about holiday hollering. Medieval frivolousness.

Let’s mellow way on down the eve with Jason Gleason mush-mouthing “Sleigh Bells and Wine,” where the sleigh awaits, the fire amasses, and the word snow has five syllables. Daddy, oh.

Drink N.B. Merry: cider

Not much lyricism over pressed old apples, hardly fermented by late December. We’ll settle over up with a bouncy, jazzy gospel piece from Carmela Estella Ross. Her “Apple Cider and Fruit Cake” is one of those token spreads to entice you to her hard driving sermon about Our Lord. You know like stale cookies and burnt coffee at AA meetings.

Drink N.B. Merry: tea

Turnabout is fair trade. Across the pond, some enjoy a cuppa with something more translucent brewing inside.

Joey Knock has a nasally epic “Christmas Cup of Tea.” He doesn’t know many chords, nor when to stop, but he is on about a good cause, innit? (When he’s not inventorying.)

Channeling an inner Alice, Dimie Cat plays antique nostalgic player piano with their distressed “Christmas Tea.” Put another nickel in!

Drink N.B. Merry: cocoa 1

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!

Sweet Christmas! cookies etc.

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.

Merry Mistletoe: womens

Girl soft folk emo jazz rock plays in the back of many a Starbucks. It’s a mood.

Barely off the pop, Destenee whispers a touch of R+B into “Meet Me Under the Mistletoe.” It’s bit too clingy.

Colbie Calliat embodies that misty yet independent grown gal with “Mistletoe.” She knows what she wants. Maybe it’s you. Maybe not.

Indigo Girls are so cool they don’t sound like girls, or women, or men… just a stream of poetic toughness. “Mistletoe” may sound like it’s begging. It’s telling.

More earthy and motherly, Christina Custode weaves a dreamcatcher of a wintry scene of home and love and jazz with “The Mistletoe Song.”

Angelic sounding Jelly Rocket soar over our heads melodically with “Under the Mistletoe.” It’s almost childlike in its nurturing, reassuring womanly innocence.

Merry Mistletoe: Aretha, Williams, etc.

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.