Monday, December 17, 2012
Music / Post No Bills 'Tis the season for less-ubiquitous holiday sounds
Posted by Peter Margasak on 12.17.12 at 12:30 PM
If you missed this week's show you can check it out on the Sound Opinions website, where you can also download Cirzan's entire Santa Soul mix, the 2012 installment of his annual holiday compilation he gives out to friends and associates (the link is good through the end of the year). Cirzan and fellow Jam employee and Christmas-music maven John Soss will also appear on Tuesday's Electric Company program, hosted by Jon Langford and Nicholas Tremulis, on WXRT between 10 PM and midnight.
The fantastic fingerstyle guitarist Tim Sparks avoided the expected sort of American Primitive adaptation of familiar holiday tunes and hymns when he tackled Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite two decades ago—it's a piece of music so ingrained into December memories he's not doing himself any favors by taking it on. But the Minneapolis picker has always been hard to pin down, veering from klezmer to Brazilian music to postbop, so pinning any expectations on him is a waste of time. As heard on a ToneWood Music reissue of that recording, his debut from 1993, Sparks plays Tchaikovsky's compositions straight, meticulously balancing the dance forms within and the piquant, indelible melodies, masterfully reducing an orchestral work for just six strings without losing the richness nor much of the contrapuntal splendor. If you never want to hear the Nutcracker again, Sparks probably won't change your mind, but he definitely brings something fresh to the table. The second half of the CD is "Tim's Balkan Dreams Suite," a gorgeous six-part interpretation of traditional melodies from Greece, Romania, and Albania, with an original closing section called "The Blues on Bartok Street." At the very least, this back part of the CD could make for splendid year-round listening. Below you can check out his version of "March of the Toy Soldiers."
Finally, Bonnie "Prince" Billy has made a sorta holiday single for Drag City with Dawn McCarthy (Faun Fables), covering an Everly Brothers ballad called "Christmas Eve Can Kill You," from the overlooked 1971 album Stories We Could Tell—an excruciating tale of loneliness told from the perspective of a hitchhiker trying to get home on Christmas Eve, with every car and truck passing him by: "Christmas Eve can kill you when you're trying to hitch a ride to anywhere." There's not a whiff of the holidays on the B side, a cover of the Rufus Thomas standard "Walking the Dog," which the Everlys covered on their 1965 album Beat & Soul. The single is a teaser for a full collaborative album BPB and McCarthy have coming out in February called What the Brothers Sang, which features 13 other, lesser-known tunes covered by the Everly Brothers. Below you can watch the video for "Christmas Eve Can Kill You."
Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie "Prince" Billy, "Christmas Eve Can Kill You" from Drag City on Vimeo.
Today's playlist:
Christian Schwindt Quintet, For Friends and Relatives (Rocket)
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers/Elmo Hope Quintet, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers/Elmo Hope Quintet (Pacific Jazz, Japan)
Fela Ransome-Kuti & His Koola Lobitos, Highlife-Jazz and Afro-Soul (1963-1969) (P-Vine, Japan)
Aethenor, En Form for Blå (VHF)
Peeping Tom, Boperation (Umlaut)
