Holiday Music Favorites III (2009)

This is another all-new arrangement, Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  The arrangement is — as usual nowadays — for guitar, bass and drums. On this recording the guitar is again the 1949 L-4C about which I recently posted on the blog.

Here are the links to listen:

Stream

MP3

Holiday Music Favorites II (2009)

This is an all-new arrangement. I’ve never actually done Jingle Bells before, although it might well be the most arranged of all holiday songs. It’s one of the simpler seasonal tunes, and it’s pretty easy to overwhelm it with harmony substitutions. It seems to me that I’ve seen and heard more arrangements that I considered to be poor than to be good.

Given that it has been arranged so many ways, it wasn’t until the idea for this approach developed that I thought I might have something at least a little bit original — and that also preserves the traditional happy-go-lucky  mood that I think most people associate with the song. Perhaps you can tell me how well the arrangement works.

The arrangement is — as usual nowadays — for guitar, bass and drums. On this recording the guitar is the 1949 L-4C about which I recently posted on the blog.

Here are the links to listen:

Stream

MP3

Holiday Music Favorites (2009)

Yes, I realize that as I post this it is a bit on the early side. However, at least I did wait until after Halloween. I can blame the timing on my wife C., who is a piano teacher and begins working on holiday music with her students once November rolls around. In order for her to be ready, she typically orders new Christmas arrangements over the summer and reviews them in September and October. So the holiday music season starts pretty early around our house.

More Holiday Music Favorites (2008)

This is a smooth jazz/swing waltz version of “We Three Kings”.

Click to Stream

Click for MP3

Holiday Music Favorites (2008)

Every year I try to make at least one new arrangement of a holiday/Christmas song. This year the first new arrangement is of “In the Bleak Midwinter”, which has music by British composer Gustav Holst of “The Planets” fame. This year is the first time I became aware of this hymn, so it seemed an appropriate choice.

The style is based on my “Vintage Instrumentals” approach — a guitar, bass drums trio with a rockabilly guitar sound and something of a reggae feel.

Click to stream “In the Bleak Midwinter”

Click for MP3 of “In the Bleak Midwinter”

The second arrangement is a flat-out rockabilly version of “Angels We Have Heard on High”. Instrumentation is also guitar, bass drums trio.

Click to stream “Angels We Have Heard on High”

Click for MP3 of “Angels We Have Heard on High”