arrange • compose • conduct
Posts about Christmas-related topics
Every December I like to take an hour of rehearsal and do a guided listening with my students. An hour is half of our weekly time together, which should give you an idea of how important I consider this activity. Christmas songs are great for guided listening because of their ubiquity – we […]
I love to set aside time for a guided Christmas listening during the last week of school before Christmas Break. A Christmas listening is especially enlightening because the songs are so familiar. You can find a bunch of wildly different versions of one song, and listen back to back. Because the song is known, […]
This was my first vocal jazz Christmas album, purchased from Harmony House when I was a sophomore in high school. Was I lucky, or what? It contains marvelous arranging by masters of the genre, a guest appearance by Tony Bennett, and The Manhattan Transfer singing at the top of their […]
Every December I like to take an hour of rehearsal for a guided listening of a single Christmas song, performed by multiple artists. This approach to guided listening has several advantages: Listening to the same song allows us to focus on other aspects of the recording. Christmas songs are so […]
By my count, Chanticleer has released six Christmas albums and a DVD. Of them, my favorite is probably “Christmas with Chanticleer” featuring Dawn Upshaw. Today, however, I want to talk about their 2007 album “Let it Snow”. Over the years, Chanticleer has dabbled in vocal jazz – most memorably in their commissioned […]
By this time in November, I’m happily shuffling more than 40 Christmas CDs in the family stereo. But this week I take a quick break to listen to some great Americana and celebrate Thanksgiving. For several years I’ve enjoyed the Public Radio special “Thanksgiving With Cantus” and happily, they have […]
How fast can you wear out a CD? We recently pulled out the Christmas CDs in our house, and it gave me the chance for a first real listen to The Real Group’s “The World For Christmas.” It was released in 2012, but I finally was able to buy it […]