Jazz Flashes Podcast - Malcolm Macfarlane on Bing Crosby's Christmas Recordings

Despite the size and depth of his recorded output, forty years after his passing on a golf course in Madrid, Spain, Bing Crosby is still mostly remembered by the general public for his holiday recordings, especially the many he made for Decca Records between the 1930s and 1940s. These are classic readings of tunes that have become popular Yuletide standards, such as "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," and most of all, Irving Berlin's "White Christmas." Several years ago I wrote about these here.

Malcolm Macfarlane, co-editor of the ICC's BING Magazine

As the holiday season approaches, I've had the chance to sit down with my friend Malcolm Macfarlane, British co-editor of BING Magazine, the journal of the International Club Crosby, to discuss at length the importance of Crosby's Christmas output. On this new episode of the Jazz Flashes Podcast, Malcolm and I cover Bing's classic Decca sides, but we also delve into his holiday movies (1942's Holiday Inn and 1954's White Christmas), Christmas radio and television specials, and other holiday albums he made in the 1960s and 1970s, including I Wish You a Merry Christmas (1962) and A Time to Be Jolly (1971). All of these are the perfect records to get in a holiday mood Crosby-style. If you're interested in listening to our whole 75-minute program, it's available at the end of this post.

Like every year, Jazz Flashes would like to wish our entire readership around the world the happiest (and jazziest) of holidays! Thanks for your attention!

Christmas Jazz: Kenny Burrell; Mattias Nilsson & Ray Aichinger

With the holiday season already upon us, it's time to review a couple of very recommendable Christmas jazz albums, both a classic and a newer issue. The former is Kenny Burrell's guitar-and-orchestra affair from 1966, entitled Have Yourself a Soulful Little Christmas, and released by the small Cadet label. Burrell definitely delivers on the title's promise—this is, indeed, a very soulful album from start to finish, with Burrell tackling both tunes one would expect ("White Christmas," "Silent Night") and others that are not as common ("Mary's Little Boy Chile," "Go Where I Send Thee"). Whether he's playing a wistful ballad or an uptempo number, Burrell's approach is always elegant and engaging, and even though he's accompanied by an orchestra and occasional strings, the focus is still on the guitar, both acoustic and electric. The intelligent arrangements by Richard Evans never get in the way and add to the soulfulness of the whole, even if the producers do tend to fade out some of the tracks. There isn't a single blemish on the album, from the sprightly version of "The Little Drummer Boy" that opens it to the bluesy reading of "Merry Christmas Baby" that serves as the closer. In between, there are many standouts, such as "My Favorite Things," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and "The Christmas Song," which will help add some soul to your holidays!

The more recent release is Silent Nights, a seven-song album by the duo of Swedish pianist Mattias Nilsson and Austrian saxophonist Ray Aichinger. It was originally issued on CD in 2015, and now it's being made available again as a digital download by the Stockholm-based Fog Arts label. It's a very interesting collection because it couples two standards with a few carols from the European tradition that show how rewarding the relationship between the folk music of the Old World and jazz can be. The standards are a very lyrical reading of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" that echoes the style of Lester Young and Ben Webster, and an unlikely recasting of "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" as a Yuletide song. One of the carols is "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht," which is none other than "Silent Night," and the other three ("Karl-Bertil Jonssons Julafton," "Macht Hoch Die Tür," and "Under Rönn och Syren") are pensive tunes that lend themselves perfectly to Nilsson and Aichinger's intimate approach. As a bonus, this digital reissue includes an original composition by the duo, "Blue December," which will also be featured in their forthcoming new holiday album, Peaceful in Dreams (European Jazz Records), which is actually slated to be released today.

A Soulful Christmas with Ramsey Lewis

The Ramsey Lewis Trio

Every year, as the holiday season approaches, it seems to me that the holiday spirit definitely feels much better when the music sounds soulful and jazzy, and even better when it has a touch of the blues. So after re-reading a record tip I submitted to the Friends of Jan Lundgren website about a year ago, I've decided to post briefly about one of my favorite Christmas albums—Sound of Christmas, by the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Cut in October 1961 for the Argo label (a Chess subsidiary) at Chicago's Ter-Mar studios, the original LP came out about three years before Lewis's memorable "The In-Crowd," but by this time, the pianist was already earning a reputation as one of the most soulful jazzmen on the scene, a pioneer of what would become known as soul jazz. This can be heard on all ten tracks of his exciting Christmas album (which was reissued on CD by Verve in 2004) both in his treatment of Yuletide evergreens and in the two original compositions that Lewis contributed to these sessions.

Though the soulful atmosphere is present throughout, the two sides of the record are markedly different. The five tracks on the first side find Lewis on piano in a trio setting alongside Eldee Young on bass and Redd Holt on drums. They take Johnny Mercer's "Winter Wonderland" at an appropriately bouncy tempo and infuse "Here Comes Santa Claus" with an irresistible R&B beat that makes it one of the highlights of the album. Lewis slows down "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" considerably, and shows that the blues is an important ingredient of his musical recipe on "Merry Christmas, Baby" (another standout) and his own "Christmas Blues." The second side is also comprised of five tunes, but this time the trio is augmented by string arrangements by Riley Hampton. Lewis's "The Sound of Christmas" begins with a semiclassical introduction, but it soon becomes clear that the spotlight is still on the pianist, who occasionally switches to celesta on some tracks, such as a beautiful reading of Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song." The old traditional carol "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" is reinvented from a R&B perspective, and "Sleigh Ride" sounds as festive as it should. Finally, Hampton's strings embellish "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" but stay out of the way as Lewis turns in a wonderful, wistful performance, almost as though he were playing just for himself and being merely overheard by the microphones. The sounds that Lewis creates for Christmas are always surprising and engaging, making this the perfect record to play if one wants to bring a bluesy, soulful strain to the holiday season.