Bah Humbug: Holiday Music I Can Tolerate

Christmas 2008, Manhattan

I say "Bah Humbug," but the truth of the matter is I am a lover of Christmas, New Year's, and the holiday season in general. It's only the music with which I have trouble, and I attribute this aversion to the many years I spent in bands rehearsing the same tired tunes over and over. After my school band career was over, I was subject to these same melodies with the elevator-music treatment during my retail career which was approximately the same length as my school band career. So we're talking 18-19 years of too-much-of-a-good-thing. Most holiday melodies have been annoying earworms at one time or another (you know--a tune that gets stuck in your head and won't go away). I know others feel the same way but are afraid to admit they experience this phenomenon or attach sentimental feelings to the offending tunes. I've always been bluntly truthful about this, and I'm sure it has cost me some friends over the years.

I'll try to put a candy-coating on my pain by sharing these few examples of Christmas music that I am able to tolerate in moderation. First, I always enjoy Bruce, Clarence, and their E-Street friends:

And then there's my favorite rock guitarist of all, Joe Perry of Aerosmith with this almost too-cool "Run Run Rudolph" filmed in Perry's basement which is, of course, a recording studio and guitar warehouse:

And although I've played the second clarinet part of the following example scores of times, I still like it.  Leroy Anderson began composing the music during a hot 1946 summer but finished a couple of years later. Mitchell Parrish wrote lyrics in 1950, but I prefer the instrumental version complete with horsey sound effects and jazzy part. I listen for those parts that I really like. This is Leroy Anderson's own Pops Orchestra, so you know this is how he wanted it to sound. This isn't an easy piece to play, but it's worth learning your part. I do admit to "faking" once in a while (not in concert, of course) in order to listen to everything else going on in the other instruments.

Speaking of jazzy stuff, I enjoy anything this guy (and his band) does (do), even MAYBE those old warhorses. But here's a cool swinging version of Boogie Woogie Santa Claus...

(Dig those solos and the Santa hat on the bass.)

Setzer does this one, too, (and so did Louis Armstrong!), but who could forget Buster Poindexter's version?

Okay, you get the idea. With all this great music out there, why are we listening to elevator music? Keep your comments civil, folks.