Holiday Music 2010

Senior year, when the Pompton Lakes High School Concert Band fired up the holiday music medley for the Winter Concert, my shorter, more slender friend Dan and I slipped backstage, pulled on white long underwear tops and bottoms, and did a dainty pirouette across the stage just as music teacher Carl Howard hit the downbeat to “Frosty”.

And I’ve never looked back. I love Christmas music.  Or, as I would call it if I could possibly piss off Fox “News”, “holiday” music.

Speaking of which. Yesterday Gretchen Carlson was assigned to beat up the guy who organizes the Tulsa, Oklahoma holiday parade. Which last year changed its name from “Christmas” parade. She tried a couple different lines of attack, none of them working very well. Then she pulled out the big gun. “Larry, do you know that some people are refusing to participate in the parade because it no longer is called “Christmas”?” Larry looks at her. She rambles on: “And the Acres of Love Alpaca Ranch is refusing to participate because of the name change. Did you know that?!” Ah, at this point, you need to dig into this yourself. The look on the poor guy’s face as he tries not to crack up when she says “Acres of Love Alpaca Ranch” is beyond priceless. Start your research here:

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/12/07/tulsa-council-votes-on-parade/?test=latestnews

Anyway. Here’s a nifty selection of “holiday” slash “Christmas” music for your 2010 delectation. I kicked ass in the used CD shops this year, including earlier tonight when I found a seriously cool stack of holiday stuff at the CDepot in College Park. Check back before the end of the year. Possible I’ll install another…uh…installment…of the holiday slash Christmas music recommendations before we close out the holidays.

Let’s start here. The best Christmas album there has ever been, and likely ever will be (especially given that the End O’ The World ™ is just a few short months away on 21 December 2012. Unless the translation of the Maya Long Count Calendar is off by 50 years. In which case it is just about…uh…52 years away). Anyway. Twisted Sister, who labored for years and years in the bars of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, put together what is by far the most creative, humorous and hard-rocking holiday album ever. Hell, it’s not just the best holiday album ever. It’s damn close to the best metal album ever. No household should be without.

At sort of the other extreme of guitar albums there’s this guy—Thom Rotella. His web site here:  

http://www.thomrotella.com/

emphasizes his jazz chops, and on the basis of the clips, he’s got good ones. On this album, he’s layered guitars into a gorgeous, and non-cliché, non-been-there-done-that, excellent CD.

Big bands. I’m not usually a huge fan. Nothing wrong with it, and you have to have as much Ellington and Billie Holiday as your hard drives will hold. It’s just that moments of true rock and roll are few and far between. That’s not a problem with this Stan Kenton disk. Kicks rockin’ ass. Cover to cover. Killer. No household should be without.

Then there’s the Bucharest Madrigal Choir, doing a whole album of “Christmas in Eastern Europe”. Very cool. Comfortably recognizable chorus work, with a twist of odd scales and unfamiliar voicings. Complex enough to be listenable multiple times in any one holiday year.

Finally, there’s this WOW Gospel Christmas album. There are zillions of WOW Gospel albums available. This double disk of holiday stuff is as close to Twisted Sister as you get without distorted metal guitars and pounding double-bass drum sets. It’s rock and roll, pure and simple. Surprisingly so. No household should be without.