Paul McCandless - Windham Hill Christmas: I'll Be Home for Christmas
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CD Details
Artist: Paul McCandlessEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-10-12
Music Label: RCA
Soundtracks:
- Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella - Brian Dunning
- Good King Wenceslas - Jim Brickman
- Angels From The Realms Of Glory - Barbara Higbie
- Christmas Time Is Here - Sean Harkness
- Holy Night - Tracy Silverman
- Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Liz Story
- Little Drummer Boy - Steve Erquiaga
- A Child Is Born - Paul McCandles
- Winter Wonderland - Philippe Saisse
- I'll Be Home For Christmas - Giovanna Imbesi
- The Holly And The Ivy - Tim Story
- Sussex Carol - George Winston
- The Compleat Nutcracker Sweet - Philip Aaberg
- Yazala Abambuti - Philip Aaberg
Music reviews of Windham Hill Christmas: I'll Be Home for Christmas
Music Review: Not Your Usual Christmas Fare
Rating: 5 Stars
The Windham Hill Christmas volumes are a repository for some of the very best "New Age" artists around, and in this one you get primarily instrumental renditions of several each of the most familiar carols and pop tunes, combined with three you don't get to hear very often. Dealing with these first, we'll start with the one track here which does have a vocal - the last one.
The best way to describe Yazala Abambuti is to quote from the liner notes (which are, in effect, track by track comments by the various artists). Samite, the stage name for the African musician Samite Mulondo of Uganda (he now lives in upstate New York), and a world-renowned flute and kalimba player (sort of a "thumb" piano) writes: "This is a song I used to sing when I was a little kid, and it was re-introduced by my aunt who came to visit me in Ithaca. The story is a legend about a man who gave birth to the Pogmies by bringing Christianity to them. His name was Apollo Kiva Ebulaya. My grandfather assisted him on his long trips into the Congo. All these years I believed that was a Ugandan tune, until I overhead someone in the U.S. singing it, a traditional hymn he had learned in English."
On the traditional 17th Century French carol, Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella, Brian Dunning on flute/recorder, keyboardist Jeff Johnson and violinist John Fitzpatrick are featured, along with guitarist Tim Ellis, bass guitarist Phil Baker, and percussionist Gregg Williams, while on the old English Sussex Carol you hear the mellow harmonica of Michigan-born (1949) but Montana-raised George Winston, also a famed "Rural Folk Pianist."
Another Montanan, jazz keyboardist Philip Aaberg, who regularly weaves elements of jazz, blues, rock, classical and even bluegrass into his music, used "as many pieces as I could from Tchaikovsky's masterpiece, blended with touches of Bee (sic) Bumble and the Stingers" in his 5:32-long The Complete Nutcracker Sweet. For the record, B. Bumble & The Stingers was a Los Angles a studio group with three hit singles in the early 1960s, including Nut Rocker, itself adapted from the master's The Nutcracker ballet.
From Philadelphia-born (1957) pianist/synthesist Tim Story we get a nice rendition of The Holly And The Ivy, while yet another well-known American pianist, Giovanna Joyce Imbesi contributes the old pop standard, I'll Be Home For Christmas, first made famous in 1943 by Bing Crosby. Marseilles-born Philippe Saisse, a smooth as silk jazz/New Age keyboardist makes another standard, Winter Wonderland, first a hit for both the Guy Lombardo and Ted Weems orchestras way back in 1934, sound like a new original composition, and from the Pennsylvanian-born jazz woodwind virtuoso Paul McCandless, Jr. we get the less-known carol, A Child Is Born. Here he is featured on the oboe as well as the French horn and the keyboard.
The Little Drummer Boy, which we first heard in 1958 by The Harry Simeone Chorale, makes a nice piece for the guitar of San Franciscan Steve Erquiaga, as does the 1944 hit for Judy Garland from the film Meet Me In St, Louis, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, for the piano of San Diego native Liz Story (born in 1956). Electric violinists Tracy Silverman and Sean Harkness give their own unique approach to, respectively, O Holy Night and Vince Guaraldi's Christmas Time Is Here from the now-classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Another jazz pianist of some renown is Barbara Higbie, who wipes away all doubts regarding her at-first seemingly dubious choice of Angels From The Realms Of Glory, and from New Age pianist Jim Brickman we get another fine performance on what might initially seem to be a poor choice for a piano instrumental - Good King Wenceslas. Beautifully done, as is every other track on the disc. A perfect one to slip into the CD player some cold, snowy evening while sitting in the dark in front of a blazing fire.
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