Category: jazz

TreeMendous Holiday Fun: Tree Vee Tunes

Cartoon characters like Christmas trees, too. And if you’re a kid, maybe you’ll excuse these songs.

Inappropriate lounge style punctuates “Cinderella’s Christmas Tree.” Her glass slippers hang next to her glass ceiling.

More in the spirit, “Dino the Dinosaur’s Christmas Tree” from the 1964 cartoon episode features Alan Reed as Santa Fred teaching the kiddies with his bouncy spluttering.

Flipside to ‘Suzy Snowflake’ was “Little Red Riding Hood’s Christmas Tree,” a Rosemary Clooney orchestral offering from 1951 that tootles its way around the decorations (you know, big eyes, big nose, big mouth…).

Yeah, there’s a song about it. Lara Herscovitch soars soulfully with “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.” Her folk pop is more about home and love and Christ and getting away from the rat race. Not sure if the grief is good here. Or childhood values. Or trees, really.

So now let’s grow up! Janyse goes Betty Boop with “Elfy Under My Tree.” Swinging flirtiness! (She has a more womanly torch version, as well.)

TreeMenodus Holiday Fun: I Saw Trees

Tromp tromp tromp, whew! Hack hack hack, hooboy! The extraction of the right evergreen is almost as hard as giving virgin birth!

Take this word of warning to heart through Erik Darling’s “Revenge of the Christmas Tree.” Frolicsome bluegrass, yes; but beware, boyo! The tree might bite back.

With a little help, p’raps it could be jolly. Dick Gardiner offers the twanging country tale of a little boy who follows a stranger into the woods with “Santa Helped Me Cut a Christmas Tree.” (I’m not sure, but i think the little boy was institutionalized while his brothers moved on…).

For those who axe, Maple Leaf Learning teaches us counting and clear cutting with “Three Christmas Trees.” Xylophonically childish!

Jug band hee holiday fun from Max E Voltz who wants to go out and cut down “A Natural Christmas Tree.” Consider my knee slapped. (But watch out for the twist ending.)

Brassy jazz from Danish Big Band Radio (feat. Mads Mathias) might remind you of smokey joints without family values, but “Chop Chop (The Xmas Tree)” wails and nails it down home.

The blues pick up the pace for “Last Minute Chopping” from Dr. BLT. Bubbas with axes.

Peter Lerman swings up another classy slab of jazz with “Let’s Chop Down a Christmas Tree.” It’s the big band look at family fun–tree-doh, diddy-o, tree-oh!

Snow Way: firsties

All of our anticipation for Winter’s secondary characteristics leads us to the deep seated joy over that first fall.

Hal Leonard Choral supplies secondary schools with arrangements for those tricky pubescent voices. But “The First Snow” is as winsome and awesome as you might expect.

Shawnee Press competes with a similar “The First Snowfall.” This is in the dog-wince range, however.

From some children’s book The First Snow of Winter comes this song by Pat Tracy with Gaelic fiddle and range. It’s heroic and stuff.

And now for something completely old: William Huckaby has revived 19th C songs to sinister effect as with John B Tabb’s “The First Snowfall.” Lord help us.

Gotta feed the a cappella jones while we’re here too. Moodswing swings and sways with “First Snowfall” creating a roller coaster of thumpy jazz.

Parodies’ Paradise: 1964 “Hello Dolly”

Louis Armstrong’s massive number reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, ending The Beatles’ streak of three number-one hits in a row over 14 consecutive weeks (in addition to holding the second and third chart positions)…the most successful single of Armstrong’s career… spent nine weeks atop the adult contemporary chart… made Armstrong the oldest artist ever to reach #1 on the Hot 100 since its introduction in 1958… the No. 3 song of 1964 as ranked by Billboard… won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1965… and Armstrong received a Grammy for Best Vocal Performance, Male.

Just about my fave-o Bob Rivers novelty Christmas song is “He’s So Jolly.” After dozens of listens, it still gets a grin.

Tripping Bells: Skoofer

Attention must be paid to the big band novelty number “Santa’s Secret.” This jazz rambler from 1944 never saw light of day until Savoy published it with other holiday oddities in 1985 (Mr. Santa’s Boogie). Johnny Guarnieri was an Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman veteran and a teacher and mentor out of L.A. The song here is a thief in your mind, dazzling you with sleights of polyrhythms and improvisation, then leaving a dangerous idea in its wake: Santa + reefer. (Squirrel Nut Zippers try to copy this lightning in a bottle with mixed results.)

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!