Christmas In July '24-Day 2
Welcome to day two of our annual Christmas in July celebration! Hard to believe that I've been doing this annually since 2006! Well, except for those two years I took off because I was in a relationship with a lady who didn't understand my addiction to vinyl (thankfully my soon-to-be-wife is a lot more understanding about such things even if she doesn't understand why I get excited about many of these records). Anyhow, for those of you who may not have been around for all those years, the premise here is simple. I look for ordinary records that happen to have a Christmas (or seasonal) song in the middle of an otherwise non-Christmas album. They're not super common, but they're also not that rare. I figure songs like that need to have a little more visibility to the Christmas music-loving community, so I collect them up and share them here. You're almost guaranteed to hear something that you've never heard before, and I hope you'll love it as much as I do. Here's the tracklist for today, and I'll have a few more for you tomorrow. Enjoy!
1. Neal Hefti And His Orchestra-The Bells Of St. Mary's (Concert Miniatures, 1957)
2. Gene Krupa-Arranged And Coducted By George Williams-Arab Dance (From "The Nutcracker Suite") (Classics In Percussion!, 1961)
3. The New York Percussion Trio-Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers (Holidays For Percussion, 1959)
Three really good tracks today, though only the Gene Krupa is new to the blog. The other two are new copies and new rips, so maybe they sound better than the old shares. I was pretty excited when I found that Gene Krupa album just last week, I didn't even care that it was a retitled reissue, I was just happy to have some Christmas tracks from the drummer man.
Nice selection today! Love Hefti and Krupa.
ReplyDeleteI was very excited to find both the Hefti and the Krupa recently, then saddened to see that I'd already shared the Hefti but forgotten all about it. And all the tracks from the New York Percussion Trio are really up my alley, too. I guess it's just a good day overall. :)
DeleteTotally agree with Buster's comment. Great selection today.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I may have put too much good stuff into a single day. I'll regret that later. :)
DeleteGood Krupa selection, and surprisingly different for him. His exciting drum solo helps to segue into a more Henry Mancini-styled Pop sound for this re-imagining. Krupa must have enjoyed getting the chance to stretch out and doing more extended solos after one or two brief exciting passages during the 78 era.
DeleteNice instrumental version of "The Bells of St. Mary's" to go alongside the vocal version by Andy Williams on his Merry Christmas album. It has got a nice Easy Listening flavor. At times, it almost sounds like a Nelson Riddle arrangement.
DeleteI always hope for Batman style arrangements on anything Hefti does, but that's just me. And it never happens... :(
DeleteIf you're looking for Batman styled licks from Hefti, look up the Frank Sinatra Reprise single Everybody's Twistin' on YouTube, which he recorded in 1962, a few years before he wrote the Batman theme.
DeleteI fell like I bought that a long time ago, but I don't remember much about it. I used to buy a lot of twist records, but never did anything with them. :(
DeleteI'm going for the FLAC but will gladly take 320 MP3s.
ReplyDeleteNeal Hefti: https://archive.org/details/lp_concert-miniatures_neal-heftis-orchestra?q=hefti+miniatures
Gene Krupa: https://archive.org/details/lp_classics-in-percussion_gene-krupa/mode/1up?q=Gene+Krupa+Classics+In+Percussion%21
NY Percussion Trio: https://www.discogs.com/master/704404-New-York-Percussion-Trio-Holidays-For-Percussion
Yeah, FLAC seems to be the way to go.
Delete