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Nothing earth-shaking here musically–it’s just a collection of familiar Christmas tunes, arranged by Leroy Anderson (always a stalwart of light music)–but the ensemble might be unfamiliar. This is a British brass band, which is a grouping that arose in the United Kingdom before expanding around the world. It’s not a very commonly encountered ensemble, but there are places that take brass bands very seriously; in the UK there are regular brass band competitions that are really a going concern, as they say.

A proper British brass band might seem like just a brass quintet expanded to twenty or thirty players, but it’s more complex than that. There are no trumpets; the soprano voices are played by cornets and flugelhorns, and there are also no French horns! The inner voices are supplied by tenor horns, baritone horns, euphoniums, and tenor trombones. The basses come via several different kinds of tubas along with a bass trombone or two. The end result is a surprisingly complex kind of brass sound (with added percussion), without the stridency of a full trumpet section.

Here is the Whitburn Band playing A Christmas Festival. (This appears to be one of those performance videos made during COVID.)

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In honor of Bob McGrath.

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I was much more of a classical musician in my youth than a jazz musician, so as trumpet players go, I was more aligned to the Maurice Andre and Bud Herseth types than jazz luminaries like Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis. One guy I liked, though, was Maynard Ferguson, who had an electric sound and who often played in the very high range of the instrument. If you want to really impress a young trumpet player, playing very high notes is the way to go. Every young player wants to play high notes!

I actually got to see Maynard Ferguson live when I was in high school. A friend of my parents, who was very interested in my musical upbringing and who knew some stuff about jazz himself, took me to hear Ferguson when he played in Bradford, PA. It was a thrilling concert, even though I really didn’t know much about jazz. The fellow who took me was a bit disappointed in the concert, because he wanted to hear Ferguson’s “big band” work, but by this time Ferguson was doing some experimenting with the kind of small-group “fusion” jazz that was popular at that time. Still, it was a great show and, as trumpet players will say of the greats, “Man, that guy can really blow.” (In trumpet world, “blows” is a compliment.)

Here’s Maynard Ferguson and his band, with a Christmas medley. If you’re wondering when Mr. Ferguson plays, well…you’ll know when he’s playing. He’s the guy who really blows.

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SiriusXM has some interesting temporary Holiday-oriented music channels right now, if you’re a subscriber…and what’s nice about these channels (I like the “classical” one, the “classics” one with songs from the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and the “Favorites” one which covers all the typical mainstream stuff) is that they don’t simply rely on the same small-ish playlist that seems to dominate most mainstream Christmas music selections you hear these days, whether on the Muzak someplace or on stations like Buffalo’s 102.5, which switches to an all-Christmas format in November.

Case in point: here is “Winter Wonderland” by Ray Charles! I know I’ve heard this before–it’s used in When Harry Met Sally, for instance–but I never hear this via “normal” channels for holiday music.

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It’s Day 2! I generally try to not be this late in the day with this feature, but sometimes that’s just the way the ball bounces. Anyway:

“Carol of the Bells” isn’t really my favorite bit of Christmas music, though I do find myself warming to it more over the last few years. I think for a while it got overplayed when I was younger…I strongly remember it figuring in Christmas commercial after commercial after commercial, to the point of distraction.

But this year I learned something new: “Carol of the Bells” is of Ukrainian origin. The composer and lyricist–Mykola Leontovych and Peter J. Wilhousky–were both Ukrainian or of Ukrainian descent, and the melody is based on a Ukrainian folk chant. Since I am in full support of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in this time of war, I therefore share what might be one of the most famous pieces of Ukrainian music ever written.

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It’s December! And as is my tradition, I will now spend the next twenty-five days featuring Christmas music. This is one of the most beloved traditions of this blog*, and I always look forward to doing it. I hope you all enjoy it as well!

I’m starting off a bit less cheerfully than usual, because…well, 2022 has been a slog much of the time for me. Nevertheless, I look to the Holiday Season for a return to good cheer, and a reminder that the world can be beautiful and that we humans can make it so. Too much of the crappiness of the world arises from our choices, so let’s just choose better, OK? Choose better.

Let’s get started….

* Mainly by me.

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