Some Seasonal Music

The three tunes here:

     Didn't form a "set" on the recent Solstice, Christmas, Etc. episode of my weekly radio program. I did play all of them, yes, but it wasn't till afterwards that it occurred to me how well they'd fit together. So here they are.

     We start with the British musicians Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden playing guitars and fiddles and singing their way through "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In" backed up by the snappiest little brass band I've heard in a long time. The second tune is from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by way of my favorite trumpeter/composer/arranger of the Big Band era, Charlie Shavers. This isn't Shavers' group performing it here, though, 'cause Don Byron's Sextet puts so much more bounce into it: "The Bounce of the Sugar Plum Fairies," Shavers called it. And the set wraps up with Bela Fleck on the banjo with his band the Flecktones and the Tuvan ensemble called Alash merrily mashing up the Eastern tune "Dyngyldai" and the Western tune "What Child is This?"

                                                  Mike

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