It's (almost) beginning to sound a lot like Christmas

It’s almost Halloween, and that means … Christmas season will begin at Wal-Mart any day now. I don’t engage in most of the frenzied lead-up to Christmas. Sometime around Thanksgiving, we’ll put up the tree and string up lights on the eves. If we’re lucky, we’ll send out the family letter before New Year’s. And when I get into the mood, I’ll pull out some Christmas music and give it a spin on the stereo.

In keeping with my listening habits during the other 11 months, I tend to avoid the usual suspects when it comes to Christmas music. Thankfully, there’s a world of great Holiday tunage beyond Bing Crosby, Burl Ives and country megastars. Here are several of my favorites:

The Roches, “We Three Kings” (1990): My all-time favorite Christmas disc is by the Roche sisters from New York City, Maggie Terre and Suzzy. The Roches have made a lot of music over the years, as a trio, individually, or in various combinations with siblings and children. Most of it is folk-tinged songs with close, sisterly vocal harmonies. But, as the liner notes explain, they got their start by singing Christmas carols on the streets of NYC. This disc is just a joy – sacred and secular music from all eras.

John Fahey, “The New Possibility: John Fahey’s Guitar Soli Christmas Album:” This 1993 reissue includes guitarist Fahey’s first disc of Christmas music originally issued in 1968, along with 11 songs from a second volume released in 1975. Fahey is a true original. Fahey applied finger-picking techniques from pre-World War II blues and country music to a broad variety of musical idioms. Beginning in 1959, he made some remarkable guitar music that defied category, yet was utterly distinctive and original. He died in 2001.

Pink Martini, “Joy to the World” (2010): This Portland band, sometimes associated with the neo-swing movement that emerged in the 1990s, actually plays quite an eclectic mix of music that includes a lot of jazz and standards, mixed with original material. On this holiday disc, eclecticism rules, with both American and Japanese versions of “White Christmas;” a Ukranian bell carol; opera; songs from a variety of cultures and winter holiday celebrations; an original composition; and, yes, several Christmas standards.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle, “The McGarrigle Christmas Hour” (2005): Canada’s First Family of Folk, led by (the late) Kate and Anna McGarrigle, gather the clan – children, siblings, in-laws, outlaws – for a festive selection of traditional Christmas songs from several cultures, pop music, standards, and originals. Just surrender and let the vocal harmonies and acoustic arrangements wash over you. Family in every sense of the word.

  

Other favorites from the Ostdiek home:

Wynton Marsalis, “Crescent City Christmas Card” (and its sequel, “Christmas Jazz Jam”)

Carpenters, “Christmas Portrait”

Vince Guaraldi, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

James Taylor at Christmas

Carols for Christmas Vols. I and II, Royal College of Music Chamber Choir and Brass Emsemble