A 'Winter Sequence' from Burns and Feather

Composer-arranger Ralph Burns Summer Sequence is well known. Less known is its sequel, Winter Sequence - A Seasonal Suite for Rhythmic Reindeer from 1954.

Burns wrote the first three parts of Summer Sequence in 1945 for the Woody Herman band. A fourth part was added in 1947 as a feature for tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. With Johnny Mercer's lyrics added, this became "Early Autumn," a vocal jazz standard.

Ralph Burns

The 1954 work was actually not written by Burns but by songwriter-impresario Leonard Feather, although Burns handled the arrangements for the 11-piece band.

Leonard Feather

This is by no means a pretentious work; it is a showcase for the members of the band, who are assigned reindeer names for this particular reindeer game.

The eight pieces on this 10-inch LP - and their reindeer soloists - are as follows:

• "Dasher" - Herbie Mann, flute

• "Dancer" - Danny Bank, baritone sax

• "Prancer" - Ralph Burns, piano

• "Vixen" - Kai Winding, trombone

• "Comet" - Oscar Pettiford, bass and cello

• "Cupid" - Billy Bauer, guitar

• "Donner" - Osie Johnson, drums

• "Blitzen" - Joe Wilder, trumpet

The music is highly enjoyable, boppish fun played by some of the best jazz musicians of the day - and in very good sound.

LINK

A Merry Mancini Christmas and More

This post presents Henry Mancini's well-known holiday LP A Merry Mancini Christmas, along with other seasonal favorites by the great composer and arranger. This is a joint post with Christmas music maestro Ernie.

To the LP we've added five songs from the Mancini catalog along with three voice tracks from the man himself (Hank, not Ernie).

Note that Mancini made a great many recordings, so I may have missed some seasonal items. Let me know if anything comes to mind. Also note that there are a few deliberate omissions, which are explained at the end of the post.

A Merry Mancini Christmas

Despite what the cover photo may suggest, this is not a familial enterprise a la The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas, even though both Henry's wife Ginny O'Connor Mancini and his daughter Monica (at right) were singers. No, it's the usual orchestral and choral effort you might expect from Hank.

Most of the LP is standard fare - "The Little Drummer Boy," "The Christmas Song," "White Christmas" and a medley of "Jingle Bells" and "Sleigh Ride" on side one, and three carol medleys on the other side. 

The one exception is a Mancini instrumental called "Carol for Another Christmas," whose ambiguous title is perhaps appropriate to a diffident melody that never achieves Mancini levels of memorability. The melody comes from a 1964 Rod Serling-scripted television film of that name, which was an updating of Dickens' A Christmas Carol for the age of nuclear weapons. Mancini wrote the score.

All in all, the LP makes for pleasant listening, but does not entirely fulfill the high expectations of the Mancini fan who happens to be writing these words. That said, it's a favorite of many people.

More Songs and Voice Tracks

The extra items start with a short Christmas greeting from Mancini, courtesy Ernie, followed by Hank's excellent version of Claude Thornhill's "Snowfall," which he makes sound new, partially by taking the ostinato away from the piano and giving it to Bob Bain's guitar. This selection comes from the terrific 1959 LP The Mancini Touch.

The composer returned to the winter theme in his fantastic score for the 1963 film Charade. This is in the form of his "Latin Snowfall," which is unrelated to Thornhill's tune.

"Latin Snowfall" is an Ernie contribution, as are all the following items. First we have the old favorite "Baby, It's Cold Outside." It always sounds strange to me sung by a group as it is here, but Mancini makes it work. This is from his 1966 set The Academy Award Songs. (Frank Loesser won an Oscar for the song's use in 1949's Neptune's Daughter, even though he wrote the song five years earlier.)

At right is the Army Reserve promo cover

Next we have a minute-long holiday greeting that Hank taped for the US Army Reserve in 1976. Mancini was a polished presenter, particularly considering that this was likely a cold reading.

The two final songs come from one of the Goodyear's final promotional Christmas LPs - Henry Mancini Selects Great Songs of Christmas by Great Artists of Our Time, from 1975. Hank anointed himself as one of the great artists and who can blame him?

The Goodyear promo

Mancini's numbers lead off the LP and close it. They are "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? / Auld Lang Syne." You can tell these arrangements are from that era because of the prominent electric bass line throughout. The album also include a Mancini recording of "White Christmas," but this is taken from A Merry Mancini Christmas.

To end the set, we have New Year's greetings from Hank. This comes from the same circa 1965 promo record that also contained the Christmas greetings mentioned above.

Omissions

Ernie reminded me that Mancini's score for the film Gaily, Gaily includes a number called "Christmas Eve on Skid Row," which is in the form of a wrenching soliloquy by Melina Mercouri that ends in death. We left it out.

Also, he notes that Mancini wrote the score for Santa Claus: the Movie in 1985, with songs by Leslie Bricusse. It's so much later than these other materials that it's not included here.

Thanks again to Ernie for his sterling contributions and good cheer, and be sure to join him on his blog for his traditional onslaught of Christmas audio goodies. Also, if you are interested in collecting the Goodyear Christmas LPs, Ernie has a checklist available on Discogs.

LINK

Walter Schumann's Two Christmas LPs and More

Walter Schumann (1913-58) was a talented arranger-conductor who unfortunately died young, but not before he contributed many well-regarded LPs, film scores and even the Dragnet theme.

His recorded specialty was choral music with the Voices of Walter Schumann, who issued two Christmas LPs and a few singles, which are gathered together for this post. There also is a substantial bonus at the end of the discussion. And please see the link to a Tony Martin Christmas collection that is new on the singles blog.

Christmas in the Air

By mid-century, the US was becoming increasingly urbanized and diverse, but its self-image was of a homogenous small town, as depicted on the covers of the 1951 LP Christmas in the Air. A church steeple was often found in the commercial art of the day. It appears on both the front and back of this 10-inch Capitol LP.

The song "Christmas in the Air," written by Schumann and Sheldon Allman, leads off the LP and appears briefly several times thereafter as a connecting thread.

After "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night," Schumann included a brief recording of "The Carol of the Bells," a Ukrainian melody with English words by Peter Wilhousky. This is followed by "White Christmas" and the Burgundian carol "Patapan."

Side 2 contains a lively version of the spiritual "Wonderful Counselor," which has a solo by the magnetic Jester Hairston. Next is Britten's setting of the Welsh Carol "Wolcum Yule," followed by Hairston's "Mary, Mary." "Winter Wonderland" and "Adeste Fideles" complete the LP program.

As a bonus, I've included the choir's 1951 single of David Rose's "Holiday for Strings," which shows off their vocal virtuosity.

LINK to Christmas in the Air

The Voices of Christmas

By 1955, Schumann had joined RCA Victor records, which that year released a fine 12-inch LP called The Voices of Christmas.

Side 1 contains "Sleigh Ride," "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," "The Christmas Song," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "What Child Is This?", "Rise Up Shepherd and Follow," "The First Snowfall," "Fum, Fum, Fum" and "Christmas Tree."

"Fum, Fum, Fum" is a Catalan carol that exists in many versions. It's not clear which is heard here, although Schumann is credited as the arranger.

"The First Snowfall," a favorite of mine, was written by Sonny Burke and Paul Francis Webster. This was among its first recordings.

"Christmas Tree," with an highly effective solo by Bill Lee, is not "O Tannenbaum," but a version of "Ja, das ist ein Schnitzelbank." The same tune would appear again in Christmas garments for "Must Be Santa," which can be found on Holiday Sing Along with Mitch, although not on this blog.

Side 2 includes "Christmas in Killarney," "The First Noël," "Frosty the Snowman," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers," "Lully, Lully, Lu," "Christmas Gift," "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S," "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "Christmas Chopsticks (It Was the Night Before Christmas)."

"Lully, Lully, Lu" is not "Lully, Lullay," the Coventry Carol, but another tune of unknown (to me) origin.

Jester Hairston

Jester Hairston solos on his own, charming, R&B-flavored "Christmas Gift." 

"C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" is a country tune by Jenny Lou Carson and Eddy Arnold that is best heard in Arnold's version, which is conveniently included in the bonus LP below.

"Christmas Chopsticks (It Was the Night Before Christmas)" is just as it portends, "The Night Before Christmas" set to chopsticks. It works better than you might expect.

There is a bonus cut as well - "The Sound of Christmas," which is an optimistic, declamatory piece somewhat reminiscent of "Christmas in the Air." The label says Schumann wrote it with Wells and Millar. Wells is possibly the songwriter Robert Wells. Victor issued it as a single in 1953, then included it on the LP below.

LINK to The Voices of Christmas

To Wish You a Merry Christmas

I transferred this 1954 RCA Victor LP many years ago, and have refurbished it for this occasion.

The artists are all well known. As mentioned above, the LP includes Eddy Arnold's "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" along with Walter Schumann's "The Sound of Christmas."

From Life Magazine

The one unusual item is Dinah Shore's recording of "Happy Christmas Little Friend," which Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote at the behest of Life Magazine. With such a distinguished lineage, expectations had to be high, but this was not the famed duo's best work and the song has been forgotten.

The biggest hit on the LP, particularly in retrospect, was Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby," written by Phil Springer and Joan Javits.

Otherwise, the LP includes:

• Perry Como - "White Christmas"

• The Three Suns - "Silver Skates"

• Vaughn Monroe - "Frosty the Snowman"

• Hugo Winterhalter - "Blue Christmas"

• Eddie Fisher - "O Come, All Ye Faithful"

• Tony Martin - "Silent Night"

• Henri René - "The Christmas Song"

• Ralph Flanagan - "Winter Wonderland"

LINK to To Wish You a Merry Christmas

The Tony Martin Christmas Collection

The Tony Martin version of "Silent Night" on the RCA Victor LP above is one of the seven titles in a Christmas collection by that singer newly available on Buster's Swinging Singles.

Although Tony didn't record much holiday material, what he did record is very worthwhile. The material goes back to almost the beginning of his career and continues to 1956.

A Musical Version of 'Junior Miss'

Fellow blogger Ernie Haynes inspired me to bring back this post from 16 years ago with songs from a Christmas production that has been forgotten. What follows is an updated version of my commentary from back then with a link to a newly remastered version of the original four-song EP.

The musical programming that was presented on US commercial television in the late 1950s was remarkable. It  included an original Cole Porter musical, Aladdin, that was sponsored by DuPont, which only a few months earlier had mounted yet another original musical from a famous composer, Burton Lane, and lyricist, Dorothy Fields.

Unlike the score for Aladdin, which is still remembered today, Lane's music for Junior Miss is largely forgotten, as is the program that evoked it. Perhaps even more surprising, the Junior Miss stories themselves are no longer remembered.

Those once-popular Sally Benson stories, originally published in the New Yorker, were collected into book form in 1941, and then became a play, film and radio show - and finally this televised musical. Set at Christmas in New York, the superb 1945 film once made occasional appearances on television but hasn't been seen lately (at least by me). Its disappearance is very strange - the film is both delightful and touching, with wonderful performances by Peggy Ann Garner in the title role and Allyn Joslyn as her father.

Don Ameche and Joan Bennett

The TV musical featured 15-year-old Carol Lynley as Judy Graves (our protagonist), Don Ameche and Joan Bennett as her father and mother, and the 17-year-old Jill St. John as her sister. Also in the cast were Paul Ford, an unrecognizable (to me) Diana Lynn, and David Wayne. You can see the first part of the program via a kinescope on YouTube.

Carol Lynley and Suzanne Sydney

Unlike other more famous TV musicals, such as Aladdin and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, there was no soundtrack recording to keep Junior Miss' memory alive - only this EP of performances by Columbia artists Vic Damone, Jo Stafford and Norman Luboff. I would have to assume this was issued in advance of the program, which aired on December 20, 1957. (This site says there is a poor quality bootleg of the performances by the TV cast, but I have never encountered it.)

The performances on the EP are as good as you would expect, and the recording as reverberant as you might expect if you are familiar with Columbia's 50s pop output. The songs themselves are quite enjoyable, even if the lyrics of "Junior Miss" are reminiscent of "Gigi" and if "I'll Buy It" brings to mind "I'll Buy That Dream." Also, "Let's Make It Christmas All Year 'Round" is not the most original concept.

It's fascinating to look through the listings for the DuPont Show of the Month in 1957-58. As I mentioned, Junior Miss came just two months before Aladdin. And two months after the latter show, DuPont and CBS mounted a version of The Red Mill with the following cast: Shirley Jones, Harpo Marx, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Donald O'Connor, Elaine Stritch and Edward Andrews. It was a different time.

LINK to December 2025 remaster

Bach Chorale Preludes for Christmas

This fascinating record brings together the various chorale preludes written by Johann Sebastian Bach that are appropriate to the Christmas season.

These are excerpted from a set of the composer's organ works that Walter Kraft (1905-77) recorded for the Vox label from 1961-67. He selected North German organs that dated from Bach's time or soon thereafter, as described on the back cover of this LP. Kraft was the organist of the Marienkirche at Lübeck, in succession to the composer Dieterich Buxtehude among others.

Walter Kraft

Bach's chorale preludes were based on Lutheran hymns. It is thought that some were used to introduce the chorales themselves; others may have been free-standing, perhaps used to accompany Communion.

Bach wrote preludes appropriate to the Christmas season for 16 chorales, using some of the chorales repeatedly. Bach's Orgelbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach contains preludes for each of the chorales.

The titles of the chorales will give you some indication of why these are appropriate to the season. Here they are with translations and the source of the hymn:

• "Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland" ("Savior of the Nations, Come") [Martin Luther]

• "Gottes Sohn ist kommen" ("God's Son Has Come") [Johann Horn]

• "Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes-Sohn" ("Lord Christ, the Only Son of God') [Elisabeth Cruciger]

• "Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott" ("Praise Be to the Almighty God") [Gregorian hymn]

• "Puer natus in Bethlehem" ("A Child Is Born in Bethlehem") [medieval hymn]

• "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ" ("Praise Be to You, Jesus Christ') [Martin Luther]

• "Der Tag, der ist so freudenreich" ("This Day, the One So Full of Joy") [15th century hymn]

• "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm' ich her" ("From Heaven Above to Earth I Come") [Martin Luther]

• "Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar" ("From Heaven Came the Angel Choir") [Martin Luther]

• "In dulci Jubilo" ("In Sweet Rejoicing") [medieval carol]

• "Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich" ("Praise God, All Christians Equally") [Nikolaus Herman]

• "Jesu, meine Freude" ("Jesus, My Joy") [Johann Franck]

• "Christum, wir sollen loben schon" ("We Should Praise Christ Beautifully") [Martin Luther]

• "Wir Christenleut" ("We Christian People") [Kaspar Füger]

• "Helft mir Gottes Güte preisen" ("Help Me to Praise God's Goodness") [Paul Eber]

• "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist" ("The Old Year Now Hath Passed Away") [Johann Steuerlein]

As for the performances, Kraft was considered to be a workmanlike organist, but not inspired, although generally thought to be at his best in the chorale preludes. Clifford Gilmore wrote in High Fidelity: "Aided partly by the interesting and beautiful instruments and by less demanding technical challenges, Kraft does manage quite lovely readings of the chorale settings. For the most part, the various organs have been well recorded; the listener can almost imagine himself perched on the organ bench with all the exposed pipe work spread out before him."

To me, the recordings tended to be a bit too close; the worshiper does not normally "perch on the organ bench." I have tried to make the sound slightly more spacious.

LINK

Ansermet Conducts Honegger's 'Christmas Cantata'

It's surprising that I have maintained this blog for 17 years and never featured the Christmas Cantata (Une cantate de Noël) by the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger (1892-1955). It's a beautiful, ingenious, even profound work that was the composer's last.

Today we have a fine 1961 recording led by the eminent Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969), who has not appeared on the blog before.

The cantata is backed by Honegger's Symphony No. 2, an apt companion because both works depict a journey from the darkness into the light.

FYI: also below are links to another performance of the Honegger Symphony, coupled with Menotti's Violin Concerto, and to the latter composer's Amahl and the Night Visitors, in the famed first recording.

Arthur Honegger

Honegger's Christmas Cantata

Honegger's cantata was actually sketched in some detail more than a decade before it appeared. He had meant it to be part of a Passion Play that he was writing for the Swiss town of Selzach, to a libretto by Cäsar von Arx. However, the war, the composer's own illnesses and the librettist's 1949 death meant the full passion was never completed.

Among the fully sketched parts was the birth of Christ. When Paul Sacher commissioned a work from Honegger for the 25th anniversary of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the composer decided to edit and orchestrate those sketches into the work we know as the Christmas Cantata. The premiere was in 1954.

In his book on Honegger's music, Harry Halbreich has written: "The composition of Une Cantate de Noël provided his last moments of creative happiness and, although the work was based on much older material, it carries nonetheless a symbolic significance in bringing his life to an end on a note of hope - that hope 'which is the strongest.'"

The work starts in darkness with somber organ tones that gradually lead to choral passages taken both from the liturgy and from carols both in French and German. The latter perhaps signify both multilingual Switzerland and peace among nations following the war.

Honegger makes remarkable use of "Stille Nacht." As the critic Alfred Frankenstein noted in High Fidelity: "[U]ntil you have heard 'Stille Nacht' manipulated by a Honegger, you haven't heard it at all."

Ernest Ansermet

The work is scored for baritone (here, Pierre Mollet), organ (Pierre Segond), choirs (Choirs of Pro Arte, French Swiss Radio and Television and the College of Villamont, directed by André Charlet) and L'Orchestra de la Suisse Romande conducted by Ansermet.

The recording comes from the Victoria Hall in Geneva, famed as a recording location. Even so, the cantata is murkier than ideal, probably because of the organ. I've tried to clarify the sound.

Symphony No. 2

As mentioned, Honegger's Symphony No. 2 is another journey from darkness into light, remarkable in its optimism considering it was written during the Second World War. The symphony is famed for its peroration, with a trumpet breaking through the turbulence and strikingly changing the mood of the work.

As with the Christmas Cantata, the symphony was commissioned by Paul Sacher for an anniversary of his Basel Chamber Orchestra - its tenth, in 1937. The work was not premiered, however, until 1942, and that came with Sacher conducting the Collegium Musicum of Zurich, another organization he founded.

Sacher (1906-99), who was wealthy, also commissioned works by Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Bohuslav Martinů, Frank Martin, Hans Werner Henze, Richard Strauss, Elliott Carter, Witold Lutosławski, Henri Dutilleux and Harrison Birtwistle, among others.

This is a very good performance in excellent sound.

LINK to Honegger's Christmas Cantata and Symphony No. 2

Another Honegger Performance with Menotti's Violin Concerto

Another strong reading of the Honegger second symphony, by the Boston Symphony and Charles Munch, is available here in newly remastered sound. Munch was a huge supporter of the composer

The coupling is Menotti's neglected but lovely Violin Concerto with soloist Tossy Spivakovsky.

The Honegger is from 1953, the Menotti from a year later.

The Classic Amahl and the Night Visitors

Appropriate to the season, I had a request for Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, which I first uploaded a number of years ago. I've now remastered the files, which have always sounded great; now perhaps a bit better.

This is the brilliant premiere performance under the young Thomas Schippers. It was the first opera written for television, presented on Christmas Eve 1951. More information is here.

The Jo Stafford Holiday Collection

Jo Stafford and Paul Weston

Considering my affinity for Jo Stafford's voice, it's surprising that her seasonal output has never made an appearance here.

I suppose that's because her holiday LPs are well known. Even so, I think it's time we presented the three of them - along with a surprising number of orphan tracks that have appeared hither and yon through the years.

Let's start with those 16 assorted numbers, which take us back to near the beginning of Jo's career. Then we'll get to her Happy Holiday, Ski Trails and The Joyful Season LPs.

Miscellaneous Christmas Tracks

Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers

Stafford joined the Tommy Dorsey band in 1939 as the lead singer of the Pied Pipers, a popular and influential group. Their sole song with a seasonal connotation would seem to be "Winter Weather," a very good piece by Ted Shapiro that was popular in 1942. Jo would return to the song on her 1955 Happy Holiday LP.

Capitol News, December 1948

Stafford went solo in 1944, and soon was with the new label Capitol, whose music director was Paul Weston - formerly of the Dorsey band - whom she would marry in 1952. But it wasn't until 1946 that they began recording seasonal fare. That year, the label issued her coupling of "Silent Night" and "White Christmas" with the Lyn Murray Singers and Weston's orchestra. The Murray group had done a good Christmas album for Columbia in 1942. It's available here, newly remastered.

Then it took until 1948 for something that could be called a follow-up - the setting of the "Ave Maria" to a Schubert melody, oddly coupled with the musty "Smilin' Through" (not included here).

Stafford made up for the lack of holiday material the next year with several releases.

We start with her early album Jo Stafford Sings American Folk Songs, where we find the first of her three recordings of "I Wonder as I Wander," which did have a folk origin but was turned into the song we know by John Jacob Niles. Regardless of its origin, it is a haunting work both melodically and lyrically that Stafford and Weston handle beautifully.

Also that year, Capitol paired Jo with Gordon MacRae in a perfect partnership that has been featured on this blog several times - including their two Christmas medleys that originally came out on a 12-inch 78.

The final 1949 release was a beautiful version of "Gesù bambino," written by Pietro Yon in 1917 and later adapted by Frederick Martens. This was later added to the Stafford-MacRae medleys that had been issued on 78 to make the EP depicted above.

The next year, Jo was featured on CBS' Carnation Contented Hour radio show. (Carnation made canned milk, which it boasted came "from contented cows.") Jo sings "It's a Marshmallow World," a fun number that was new that year. Peter De Rose and Carl Sigman were the authors.

In 1952, Jo's new label Columbia paired her with a singer much different from MacRae, but just as simpatico - Frankie Laine. He and Stafford had a notable rapport that is immediately apparent in their superb singing on "Christmas Roses," a charming country-style song by the team of Hy Zaret, Alex Kramer and Joan Whitney.

Jo with Frankie Laine

The next year, her holiday offering was the excellent Sammy Cahn-David Holt song "Christmas Blues," also recorded by Dino and newly popular in recent years with recordings by the likes of Bob Dylan.

Stafford and Weston kept themselves busy with her two seasonal LPs for Columbia in 1955 and 1956, which are covered below. But one recording apparently made in 1955 was not included on those albums. It was a version of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" that was not issued until a 1968 LP otherwise consisting of material from Jo's holiday LPs. This is with an unidentified organist. Thanks to Ernie Haynes, who alerted me to this number!

From there, we jump ahead to 1962 when another version of "I Wonder as I Wander" was included on her stereo remake of Jo Stafford Sings American Folk Songs, with the same arrangements as the first go-round. She must have liked the song - it also ended up on the Winter Weather LP below.

Stafford made a quick stop-over on the Reprise label for a version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" that appeared on a Christmas compilation in 1963.

The next year Jo recorded a spot for the Marine Corps Reserve's "Toys for Tots" drive, doing a nice job with the tune and with the messaging as well. Jack Marshall conducted. This was presumably made during the sessions for The Joyful Season, covered below.

Stafford largely retired in the mid-60s, but we do have one more item, here presented out of chronological order because it is a New Year's song - "Auld Lang Syne," taken from Jo's 1956 LP Songs of Scotland.

LINK to miscellaneous Christmas tracks

Happy Holiday

Happy Holiday of 1955 is an entirely pleasing album, but doesn't display the generosity of the season, being short, repeating material that had appeared elsewhere - in new versions - and featuring two numbers that don't include the artist named on the cover.

What it does include are a few appearances by Tim Weston, the three-year-old son of Jo and Paul, who also shows up in the cover photo, bundled up for a winter storm of soap flakes and styrofoam. Jo made do without a coat.

As for the LP, it presents two versions of Irving Berlin's "Happy Holiday," which together last a minute and a half, and remakes of "Winter Weather," "I Wonder as I Wander" and "Silent Night." New to Jo's recorded repertoire were "The Christmas Song," "Let It Snow! (etc.)," "Toyland" and "Winter Wonderland." There also was a recitation of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" with Weston's musical backing.

Jo must have been out of the room for two numbers: "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is performed by an unidentified children's choir and "The March of the Toys" by Weston's orchestra.

All of this is not unpleasant, but, gee, let's hear more of Jo! 

LINK to Happy Holiday

Ski Trails

This parsimonious approach continued the following year with Ski Trails, which even repeated two songs from Happy Holiday - "Let It Snow (etc.)" and "Winter Wonderland." Meanwhile, the Norman Luboff Choir showed up with forceful renditions of "Winter Song," which seems to be an old choral item from Dartmouth College (Weston was a graduate), and "The Whiffenpoof Song" from Yale. Presumably Luboff's forces were portraying hearty fraternity fellows at an après-ski party.

For Stafford, the only remake seems to be "By the Fireside" (aka "In the Gloaming"), which she had recorded years before with Gordon MacRae. New to her recorded repertoire were "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "Moonlight in Vermont" (with lyrics adjusted to make it more wintery), "It Happened in Sun Valley" (from Glenn Miller's film Sun Valley Serenade), "I've Got Me Love to Keep Me Warm," "The Nearness of You," "June in January" and "Sleigh Ride."

So quite a few new items, just not as many as there could have been.

LINK to Ski Trails

The Joyful Season

So long as I am picking nits, let me start with the title - The Joyful Season really ought to be The Joyous Season, "joyful" relating to people and "joyous" to things.

But the important point to mention is that this 1964 LP features "the Voices of Jo Stafford," signifying that she sings in harmony with herself throughout the album, à la Mary Ford or Patti Page.

Jack Marshall

Together with the sparse arrangements of Jack Marshall, this gives the LP an aura that I have previously likened to an aluminum Christmas tree.

But that is too harsh. The album offers much to enjoy.

Again, there are songs Jo had assayed previously - that's hard to avoid with Christmas material. But there are new things under the tree as well - "Deck the Hall," "Silver Bells," "Little Drummer Boy" and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." 

Most notable are two new songs that Paul Weston wrote with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Keith Bergman - "Merry Christmas" and "Christmas Is the Season." Not classics, but worth hearing.

So overall, the set is much to be preferred to an aluminum Christmas tree, even one with a rotating color wheel.

LINK to The Joyful Season

The Season Begins with the Ray Charles Singers' 'Winter Wonderland'

When I write "the season begins," I mean the Christmas sharity season, not winter. That doesn't start until December 23, unless you are in the Southern Hemisphere.

Anyway, I imagine the many admirers of the Ray Charles Singers will be pleased to see their terrific 1955 Winter Wonderland on offer here. I recall writing at one point that I didn't think I had this record, only to discover that I have two copies. The condition of this one is pristine, as is the music making. And I love the very 50s cover of a very 50s ranch house in the snow.

Ray Charles

Winter Wonderland is not a Christmas LP per se. There are no carols, just paeans to the glories of "Snowfall" and such, even if the words of "Moonlight in Vermont" had to be tweaked to fit the season.

This album generally follows the pattern of others in the series. Vocally, the group tends to present the songs as if they were following a scenario, as on a television show. On the instrumental side, the lead instrument is usually Nick Perito's accordion or Tony Mottola's guitar. On a few songs, Dick Hyman on piano is featured, providing some variety.

For songs, there are the usual seasonal standbys - the title song, "Button Up Your Overcoat," "June in January," "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," "Jingle Bells" and "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" 

Interspersed are less familiar items:

• Irving Berlin wrote "When Winter Comes" for Rudy Vallee to sing in the Sonja Henie twirler Second Fiddle. Charles himself has the solo on this LP. (Mary Healy, one of the stars of the film, recorded "When Winter Comes" - her version can be found here.)

• Claude Thornhill's "Snowfall" is well known as an instrumental, less so with the lyrics contributed by Ray Charles himself.

• Al Bryan and Alfred Gumble wrote "Winter" in 1910 and Charles resurrected it for this LP, counterpointing it with a melody of his own invention called "Theme for Indoor Sports."

• "When Winter Comes a-Callin'" is a relatively obscure song by Mack Discant and Joseph Meyer. The liner notes say was then of recent vintage.

• "By the Fireside" is also known as "In the Gloaming (By the Fireside)," "gloaming" being a Scots term for twilight. Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly and Ray Noble wrote it in 1932; Noble's band recorded it with an Al Bowlly vocal.

The vocalists on the recording are Lillian Clark, Kathleen Wallace, Lois Winter, Miriam Workman, Robert Bollinger, Jerry Duane, Edwin Lindstrom, Eugene Lowell, Arthur Malvin, Alan Sokoloff, Michael Stewart and Eugene Steck.

The sound on this record - and the performances - are excellent.

With Winter Wonderland we complete Ray's traversal of the seasons. Here are the others:

• Autumn Nocturne

• Spring Is Here

• Summertime

LINK to Winter Wonderland

A 18th Century Czech Christmas

A Prague staging of Ryba's Christmas Mass

The most famous Czech musical tradition for the holiday is Jakub Jan Ryba's Christmas Mass, an enchanting work dating from 1796 that is still widely performed

This celebrated work is part of a tradition of pastoral carols - or pastorellas - that arose in the 18th century. Today we have a fine 1966 recording of the Mass as led by Vaclav Smetáček, plus a second (and equally outstanding) LP devoted to seven examples of the pastorella.

Ryba - Czech Christmas Mass

Jakub Jan Ryba (1765-1815) was a Czech teacher and composer of classical music. He was born near Plzeň. After graduation from school, he worked as a teacher and musician, before becoming the head of a school in Rožmitál pod Třemšínem, where he wrote his Czech Christmas Mass. He did well but was unhappy because of conflicts with the pastor and local council. Poor and exhausted, he committed suicide in 1815.

Jakub Jan Ryba

Let me call on Brian Kenety of Radio Prague for more about the Mass: "[Y]ou’d be hard pressed to find a Czech who doesn’t associate the season with composer Jakub Jan Ryba’s pastoral classic Christmas Mass ... it is the most popular piece of Czech Christmas music ever written. At this time of the year, it resounds in churches and concert halls around the country.

"[T]he Kyrie - Hej mistře, describes a village scene where a young shepherd wakes up his master to tell him about a strange heavenly light and wondrous music coming from afar.

"There are nine parts in all of the work, often described as a Christmas cantata, all based on pastoral motifs. Although it has the structure of a classical Latin mass, instead of taking place in Bethlehem, the scenes unfold somewhere in snow-covered Central Bohemia. Because of its folk character and simplicity, it was excluded from the traditional Catholic liturgy."

Vaclav Smetáček

Our performance is a starry one, from the Prague Symphony and conductor Vaclav Smetáček (1906-86).  He was chief conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK (Film–Opera–Concert) from 1942 until the 1970s.

Jaroslava Vymazalová

The talented cast including soprano Jaroslava Vymazalová, alto Marie Mrázová, tenor Beno Blachut and bass Zdenĕk Kroupa.

Helena Tattermuschová

The LP also includes one example of a pastorella, Ryba's Sweet Nightingale, which also appears in the collection below, in an earlier recording. The soprano soloist here is Helena Tattermuschová.

LINK to the Czech Christmas Mass

Czech Christmas Pastorellas

Let me get some musicological matters over first, citing that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia: "In Baroque music, a pastorale [i.e., pastorella] is a movement of a melody in thirds over a drone bass, recalling the Christmas music of pifferari, players of the traditional Italian bagpipe (zampogna) and reed pipe (piffero)." And there for us on the cover is one of the reed pipe players.

Wiki tell us that pastorales "resemble a slowed-down version of a tarantella, encompassing many of the same rhythms and melodic phrases."

I think you will find that these pastorellas are characteristic of the baroque era, here well performed in striking 1954-55 recordings.

But what of their cultural significance? From Dr. Sp-El's cover notes: "Hundreds upon hundreds of carols from all parts of the country were preserved. Their lovely melodies are both pious and joyful, their texts poetic and witty. Children and adults hummed them and sang them and rejoiced in them and during the whole Christmas season they were sung in both homes and the churches."

Milada Šubrtová, heard in the Ryba pastorella

For this recording, Ryba returns with his Sweet Nightingale, here called My Lovely Nightingale. Jiří Ignac Linek (1725-91) is represented by two works: Good Night, My Little Jesus and Pastorella Jucunda. The composer lived and worked in a small town in northern Bohemia as a schoolmaster, choirmaster and town scribe.

Jiří Ignac Linek

Our next composer, Tomáš Norbert Koutník (1698-1775) was a schoolmaster and choirmaster in a small town in eastern Bohemia. He is represented by his relatively elaborate Pastorella in C (Gloria).

Miluše Dvořáková, heard in the Skřivánek and Suchánek works 

The balance of the works are by composers of whom little is known. Tomáš Skřivánek provides his Pastorella in G, D. Milčinský a Pastorella a Tres Voces in A and a composer named Suchánek with his Cantus Pastoralis Pro Nativite Domine. The Milčinský is notable for being the only non-vocal work on the program.

Ladislav Šíp

Conductor Ladislav Šíp was an official with Supraphon when these recordings were made. He became head of the opera of the National Theatre in Prague in 1973. From 1976–86 he was the director of the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, which again is the ensemble heard here.

LINK to Czech Christmas Pastorellas