CD: Pop Rock Christmas

• Pop Rock Christmas CD on Amazon.



These days I buy very few CDs and even have given away quite a few, but I got this CD after Christmas for a great price and I'm glad I did. "The First Noel" alone is worth far more than the price I paid and well worthy of many, many listenings; "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing" isn't far behind. In 1998 Tom Wanca produced and arranged as well as playing keyboards and organ and singing background vocals for Sheer Panic. With a touch of rock and more than a hint of classic country, the designation "Pop Rock" fits well as the arrangements basically rock the rhythm and skew the harmonizations most people are used to.



Liner notes provide performance and production details and in the interest of accommodating anyone who may have turned off browser images and/or are relying on an app to read the screen to them, here's the playlist that you can see contains non-exotic secular and more sacred songs for Christmas:

1. Angels We Have Heard On High
2. Up On The Housetop
3. Over The River And Through The Woods
4. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
5. The First Noel
6. I Saw Three Ships





7. Jolly Old St. Nicholas / Jingle Bells
8. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
9. Silent Night! Holy Night!
10. What Child Is This?

• my amazon review: country, rock, and pop for Christmas

Chopin Piano Concertos: classically elegant

Chopin: The Piano Concertos—Lang Lang, pianist; Zubin Mehta conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.


Given that Frédéric François Chopin lived during the 1^st half of the 19^th century and generally is considered a romantic compositor, "romantically elegant" might be a better review title, but pianist, orchestra and conductor all perform with more polished reserve and measured restraint then with passionate ardor and fiery abandon, so I'm going with classical.

Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 is my own favorite of the pair, and listening to both in a row is enjoyable, though both performances have a sense of sameness about them that's not necessarily a negative thing at all. Not surprisingly, Lang Lang's keyboard technique approaches perfection, the orchestra plays extremely well and the recording itself has an almost ideal level of brightness and presence. As an aside, to all the non-pianists reading this, despite stereotypes to the contrary, Chopin's music is well-suited to the human hand and not technically difficult in the way Liszt's (for example) is, but it does take many hours of practice to get all but his simplest, shortest pieces to high-end performance-readiness. If you like piano music and if you like Chopin, I'd definitely recommend this released-in-2008 recording.

• my amazon review: classically elegant

clear perfection!

•

The four Overtures or Orchestral Suites, BWV 1066-1069, by Johann Sebastian Bach are some of my all-time favorites. I love this recording by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert, the orchestra he founded and led for thirty years. I frequently find myself amazed at how well some older analog recordings have been digitally remastered and at other times distressed at the poor quality of others. This CD of a recording made in 1979 was released in 2007; the performances approach essence of perfection and the recording sounds clear and bright and rich.


• my amazon review: clear perfection!

Harris & Copland: 3rd Symphonies

Copland, Symphony #3; Harris, Symphony #3

 

With trilingual liner notes in English, German and French along with strikingly bright cover art featuring a DC-2 hovering above a horse-drawn stagecoach, this recording of two classic American symphonic standards is well-prepped for export! For both pieces Neeme Järvi conducts the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It's fair to say Roy Harris' Symphony No. 3 in one movement and five parts is an icon of 20^th century American music, and especially given that the final, 4^th movement of Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3 is a version of his "Fanfare for the Common Man," his 3^rd symphony isn't far behind in the category of iconic.

Basically I like the orchestra's playing under Maestro Neeme Järvi, who served as DSO Music Director from 1990 through the end of the 2004-2005 season. However, at times the music simply sits there, so in general I'd like to feel a greater sense of the narrative moving along and greater passion in the shapes of the phrases. Not surprisingly, the luminous sound of the Chandos recording is a joy to the ears! Do I recommend this CD? Definitely! It will give you another perspective on a pair of major orchestral works that are among my very favorites, and maybe yours, as well.

my amazon review: solid performances, clear sound

A Christmas Keeper!

• Christmas on the Border on Amazon

...A Spicy Holiday Recipe of Texas Blues, Hot Country, and Mexican Salsa as well as a project and production from the town of Nashville, Tennessee, a place doesn't exactly border Mexico (or Canada, for that matter). "O Holy Night" and "What Child is This" are rocked-up essential classics; I could listen endlessly to a memorably haunting "The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy" or "I Wonder as I Wander." The style of "Joy to the World" and "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman," both just enough different from what you're used to that you listen more carefully all make for a CD to play over and over and recommend, too. Except for the definitely secular "Up On the Rooftop" the songs are classic North American (USA and Canada) Christmas worship, church pageant and radio top-40 favorites.

Since I included playlists from my other two Christmas CD reviews, here are the songs on this one:

1. Children Go Where I Send Thee
2. Joy to the World
3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
4. Go Tell It on the Mountain
5. The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy
6. O Holy Night
7. I Wonder as I Wander
8. What Child Is This?

How apt and how fun this is as an example of contextualizing the Gospel and incarnating Christianity with cross-cultural musical styles, a little of this and a little of that, each still in its original idiom yet woven into the other idiom. It reminds me of the C.S. Lewis Dawn Treader quote on my Facebook page: "...said the Lamb, "For you the door into Aslan's country is from your own world." ... "There is a way into my country from all the worlds," said the Lamb...and he was Aslan himself..."

I have the impression the CD title is supposed to reference Tex-Mex style and culture, but cross-culture border styles of Southern California/ Northern Mexico and Southern Arizona/ Northern Mexico I'm familiar with aren't exactly like this CD. "Christmas on the Border" and chili pepper art both suggest songs sung in Spanish or at least partly so--in these here parts we've been known to have macaronic English/Spanish liturgies and many of us speak passable Spanglish. That's simply a passing comment, though, and I predict you'll enjoy the energy, twang, and harmonic color of Christmas on the Border (the CD).

• my amazon review: A Christmas Keeper!

cool jazz christmas: CD

Eric Darken and company bring an enjoyable Christmas music collection with another project from Nashville, Tennessee in

• Cool Jazz Christmas: Refreshing Holiday Instrumentals.

For the most part the music conveys a sort of New-Agey, cool, casual and offhand sensibility that passes time pleasantly with an occasional sequence or riff that makes you want to listen again because it was unusual, unique and... repeatable. The sound is excellent and over all Cool Jazz Christmas is well-produced, but it's more the kind of performance you have playing in the background instead of sitting down with to savor every sound. However, "O Come, All ye Faithful" with Mark Baldwin on keyboards and sax by Mark Douthit is worth the price of the CD--I wanted to say there was a best out of all of tracks, and happily there is. The playlist is church, mall and radio standards, but even with quite a few newer songs and carols, what would the season be without these?

1. Winter Wonderland
2. Joy to the World
3. Deck the Halls
4. We Three Kings
5. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
6. Here We Come a Caroling
7. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
8. O Little Town of Bethlehem
9. O Come, All Ye Faithful
10. Pat-a-Pan

Front and back cover designs are beautiful enough (almost) to make me want them in LP-album cover size—remember when we used to leave our currently best and favorite ones out for show? The credits conclude with, "Above all, thanks to the Creator of such wonderful and meaningful music. Merry Christmas!" Amen!

• my amazon review: For a Cool Jazz Christmas

sounds like...

Community Christmas at the Cathedral!



Released in August 2007 and featuring producer Mark Baldwin's guitar that often sears, sometimes sings and at times laments, Red Hot Christmas Blues reminds us of the frequent messiness of life, the apocalyptic hope of Advent and the surprise of God's Nativitytide appearance in the Bethlehem manger. Except for the introductory "Christmas Blues" vocal bewailing wintry conditions of broken life and broken bank account, playlist titles are Christmas carols you get to sing in church and listen to on radio and MP3 throughout the season.

However, in liturgically logical order:

1. Christmas Blues
2. What Child Is This?
3. Silent Night
4. Go Tell It On The Mountain
5. I Wonder As I Wander
6. O Holy Night
7. Angel Shuffle
8. The First Noel

…these jazz illuminations carry a revelatory twist and provocative style you don't often get on the radio or at church. I cannot help but imagine Christmas Eve at the downtown cathedral or tall steeple, or just as easily these offerings could be from a smaller nearby parish with wide-open doors that invite and include all comers.

In 4 minutes and 47 seconds "Angel Shuffle," a wildly improvised version of "Angels we Have Heard on High" probably is my favorite among favorites on this CD. I won't try describing it but can assure you it's worth the price and the storage space—from someone (me!) who doesn't buy many CDs these days and gave away quite a few quite a while ago. Walter Bruggemann says only grief enables newness (something about getting out of denial, maybe?) and "Angel Shuffles" brings together sorrow, regret, loss and anger with the surprise of God's renewing presence in our very midst.


And would you believe, bible specialists Thomas Nelson published this music CD?! Not surprisingly, I love the artwork and package design by Christie Knubel. Finally, you easily can find Red Hot Christmas Blues on eBay and Amazon, so go for it!

• my amazon review: sounds like… Community Christmas at the Cathedral!

grace has appeared: event design

desert spirit's fire!: favorite music 5

desert spirit's fire!: favorite music 5

Celebrating Dennis' Life

Celebrating the Life of Dennis Sabella
Saturday 03 October 2009

this music

Come, Let Us Worship and Bow Down . . . . . . Dave Doherty

You Are My All In All . . . . . . Dennis Jernigan

On Jordan's Stormy Banks . . . . . . "Promised Land"
            from Southern Harmony

Prelude in F . . . . . . Douglas Moore

a fancy: the meadowlarks in the goldenrod . . . . . . Leo Sowerby

Appalachian Dance . . . . . . Paul Nordoff

Pastorale . . . . . . Paul Creston

Hill Song . . . . . . Paul Nordoff

Song After Sundown . . . . . . Randall Thompson

Lord, Be Glorified . . . . . . Bob Kilpatrick


and this poetry

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings
1894-1962

Sunday music: 20 January

I Will Lift My Eyes | Bebo Norman

Verse 1:
God, my God, I cry out
Your be-loved needs You now
God, be near, calm my fear
And take my doubt

Verse 2:
God, my God, let Mercy sing
Her melody over me
God, right here all I bring
Is all of me

Pre-Chorus:
Your kindness is what pulls me up
Your love is all that draws me in

Chorus:
I will lift my eyes to the Maker
Of the mountains I can't climb
I will lift my eyes to the Calmer
Of the oceans raging wild
I will lift my eyes to the Healer
Of the hurt I hold in-side
I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes to You

Bridge:
'Cause You are and You were and You will be for-ever
The Lover I need to save me
'Cause You fashioned the earth and You hold it to-gether, God
So hold me now (to chorus)

Outro:
God, my God, I cry out, Your be-loved needs You now

Son Of God | Lincoln Brewster

Hold my hand and walk with me
You're the light that makes me see
On this path my soul You lead
Oh my Shepherd walk with me

My Saviour, Glorious One
My Redeemer, living in my heart
Now and forever Your kingdom come
Jesus, Son of God
Jesus, Son of God

I need You more than breath
You're my hope in You I live
Angels worship at Your throne
Power and glory to You alone

Bridge: Jesus, oh Jesus
Holy is the Lamb of God
Jesus, oh Jesus
Worthy is the Lamb of God. REPEAT 2X

Blessed be Your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be your name

Blessed be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing you pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing you pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord Blessed be your name

Written by Matt Redman and Beth Redman © 2002 Thankyou Music (PRS) Administered worldwide by worshiptogether.com Songs except for the UK and Europe, which is administered by Kingsway Music.

The Church's One Foundation

Prayer response: Built on the Rock the Church Shall Stand

Choir anthem: Surely the Lord is in This Place

Offertory Music: The Way We Mend | Bebo Norman

Lately you've been all blue sky
And I've been rain
I don't mean to bust up your party
With all of my pain

But sometimes my shadows surround me
And you take me in your arms and say

It's the way we mend
We tear it all down and we'll start it again
And I don't know how but you find me where we begin
And that's just the way, the way that we mend

It's just that some voices remind me
I'm not strong enough
To put all my demons behind me
And carry this love

But just like an angel of mercy
You take me by my hand and say

They're pouring out
From my mouth
So many words all spoken wrong
But you come alive
And somehow I find my way

Concluding song: My Hope is Built on Nothing Less