Wishing all my Christian friends a very Merry Christmas. And to those of other faiths (like myself), wishing you quiet, gentle days ahead as we approach the New Year. As a musician, I gave public performances of Christmas music in countless venues over many decades. My favorite of the melodies was always “God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen.” Perhaps it is because I associate it with Charles Dickens’s timeless “A Christmas Carol.” Or, maybe I intuitively sensed that it was “[o]nce a folk carol sneered at by purists … .” That description comes from Günther Simmermacher’s lively history of the song that appeared in 2018 in The Southern Cross—a Catholic publication produced in Cape Town, South Africa.
This morning, I went to my piano and recorded the following version, in jazz idiom, for piano, bass, violin, saxophones, vibraphone, and oboe. My wife’s painting features a wintry day at a beloved spot on the Delaware coast. Best wishes to all of you. — Bob
Thanks, Bob, nicely done as always. My son in law (and grandson) is Jewish and our family is blended spiritually, which broadens our perspective. Hope you and your family enjoyed the Festival of Lights and wish you and Alanna a healthy new year. At least one of my friends with whom I shared your work has become a big fan.
That's a really nice rendition, Bob. Thanks so much for sharing it. I love how the different instruments seem to slip and slide past each other with the free-flowing phrasing.
To the extent I'm Christian, I'm a Celtic Christian, because I'm grounded in the attunement to Earth cycles as my far ancestors were. That said, I love the traditional carols, because there's a lot in there about love, and about realigning the relationship between us finite beings and our Infinite source. Happy to celebrate the thing about peace on earth to people of good will, especially if I "color outside the lines" doing so.