We're back with the second installment of Getting In the Mood: Best Christmas Albums. Today's pick is from a legendary Jazz guitarist. One of my all-time favorites, and one of Jimi Hendrix's major influences...
Kenny Burrell:"Have Yourself a Soulful Little Christmas"
We'll start with the opening track, "The Little Drummer Boy." It starts out how you may expect a Jazz guitarist to put their spin on the song, but eventually Burrell goes off with a solo that any shredder would love to play, and he's doing it clean with no pedalboard tricks.
Now we'll move onto his rendition of my favorite, "White Christmas." Burrell's is beautiful, smooth and soulful. I simply elegant.
Now we move on to "Children Go Where I Send Thee." This is a total jam! Mixing Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Bing Band, the song just rips. You can't help but tap your foot and smile.
Burrell puts his unique and skillful style on every one of these classics, and for anyone who may say Jazz is boring or dull...There is nothing boring or dull about this album. Check it out kids!
There's the wife, in the white room, on the white loveseat, by the white Christmas tree asking for her white Christmas and I love giving her the white...Every day, not just Christmas!
All kidding and being a pervert aside, here we sit in Erie, PA, a place that never has trouble getting snow, and all I've got is rain. It often feels like we get snow 8 months out of the year. Just a couple years ago we got six feet in one night. But it's 2020 and everything is fuckered up. But damnit snow helps the wife and I both get in that holiday vibe. So today's song is a no-brainer..."White Christmas."
We'll start with the grooviest version out there, by Booker T. & The M.G.'s from their 1966 album, "In the Christmas Spirit." The coolest and most underrated Christmas album out there.
Speaking of cool, how can you not love The Drifters version?
Then of course there is Kenny Burrell's flawless Jazz version.
How about we shift gears in a totally different direction. Nothing shocked me more than, when Bad Religion put out a Christmas Album...And I love it!
How can you not think of Bing Crosby when talking "White Christmas?"
Which is your favorite? Are you hoping for a White Christmas?
I hope the holiday season has treated you all well...I hope many Merry Christmases were had and wonderful New Years celebrations as well...I hope your trees were trimmed as nicely as the one above...And I hope all you Santa's out there were treated the way we all should be....
I had a good Christmas, that was chaotic...Working third shift on at a new job...getting by on limited sleep...Running my Mother-in-law to visit my Father-in-law at the Nursing Home we had to put him in...Dealing with the day to day stuff with the household and eh kids...And all that craziness of being Santa...It barely felt like Christmas...it just felt hectic...But in the end, the family was happy and that's all that matters....
As for my writing and sports...I have been an absent as a writer and a site owner...I have watched no sports...I have zero fucks to give about sports lately...I have watched literally no college football bowl games...Zero, zip, none...I will however be sitting down shortly to watch Notre Dame and Ohio State play...I will be jumping of course to the NHL's "Winter Classic"...I don't know that I will be writing about these events...Hell, this is the first time I have opened my laptop to write in a couple weeks...It's only been used for Molly to play Club Penguin with big brother...
I heard about Peyton Manning, and I saw some people going off via facebook about how differently the media has covered his possible cheating as opposed to how they covered Brady and the Patriots...Anyone cheating or trying to cheat in sports does not surprise me...I've just come to except it...A large number of people in our society are always looking for an angle, and a way to get by or cheat the system...A large number of people are assholes!
Bill Cosby was finally rung up on charges for being a piece of shit...Possibly a rapist (allegedly)....He's done enough bits about Spanish Fly over his career, or the Cosby Show episode where his BBQ sauce made everyone horny, plus what he has said in depositions, that pretty much make it clear that he is all about drugging women to so he can do whatever freaky shit he wants to them...Another asshole working an angle!
Then we have our field of lying, cheating, self promoting, fear-mongering, gas-bag, criminal fucks who are running for President...What a sad state of affairs we are in when this steaming pile holds our options for the next President...
It might be a new year, but it's starting out looking like the same old shit...My suggestion for having a "Happy New Year"....Turn off all this noise...Don't watch political shows on TV...Watch shit that makes you laugh, and smile...Watch shows and movies that excite you or make you cry...Watch something that makes you think, as opposed certain agendas crammed down your throat via soundbites...
Watch sports and enjoy the purity of the games...Don't watch 2 hours of pre and post game coverage that muddle up the game with bullshit...Don't let some weasel tell you it's a real serious story because "Sources say"...Tell me the sources name and that they are real, or fuck off...
Listen to music...Listen to lots of music...All kinds...Good music...
Enjoy your family and friends...Sit down to a good dinner, and don't let any phones out at the table...Engage in real conversation...Texts and tweets are overrated and limit us all...Talk and listen...
It's official...I'm over this Winter shit...I have been thinking about how great it would be to move...Start a new adventure with my wife and kids...A fresh start, somewhere else...Take a chance...My wife and I have always wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest...Seattle, Portland, shit like that...The Mrs. and I joked about moving to Seattle...Thursday night, she came in from walking the dog...It was 4 degrees out...I had already had my fill earlier in the day shoveling the snow...She gave me a look...I pulled it my phone and looked at Seattle's weather...I said, "Honey, it's 57 degrees with a light rain in Seattle." She replied, "Let's move!" Unfortunately, there would be a serious pushback from our kids...Especially our oldest...
So for now, all I can do is look forward to Spring...I've always been a Fall and Winter guy, but as I get older, I can do without Winter...And with Spring comes Baseball...I miss Baseball...Not so much MLB...And not even Fantasy, which after winning two leagues last year is surprising even to me...
Surprising to me, I miss coaching Baseball...This past Summer was the first time not coaching my son and a team in baseball, after 4 years of doing it...When I took my promotion at work, coaching was taken off the table...And my son decided not to play...I'm not sure how much of that had to do with me not coaching, but it bothered me that he didn't want to play...His attention deficit made it hard for him standing out in the field...But he was really good, without trying very hard...I was hoping to get him into the little details, but he just didn't want to do it...I wasn't going to push too hard...I never want to be the pushy sports dad...
I'll be honest, as I always try to do when I write...I've been finding myself getting depressed lately...Mostly late at night...There is a point that I should go to bed, but instead I stay up...I may watch a movie, or TV...But I slip off into my head and just get into a funk...
One recent evening I started thinking about my days coaching...When I stopped, I had a feeling of relief, because my last season, there was a lot of bullshit with the rec department and the people running the league...It seemed the only people that gave a damn were about 6 of us coaches and a handful of parents per team...
But as I thought more, I really missed it...I was proud of how I coached...How I treated each kid the same...How they all got to play ever position...How if a kid on my team made fun of a teammate or a kid on another team struggling, they ran a lap, and were warned not to do it again...And no parents gave me shit about it...They supported it...When I had a tiny girl, playing for the first time in her life, and learning everything from us, her teammates cheered for her when she was close to tears, and parents followed...They didn't bitch that I gave her extra time in the batter's box at practice, over their kid that had no problem hitting...They barked at the umps for calling a strike on a ball over her head...
I thought about a Saturday scrimmage another coach and I setup, because so many games got rained out the one year...We played 3 innings, then some kids had to go...We mixed up the remaining kids, along with some older siblings that were there and played another 3 innings just for fun...After that I had kids wanting to stay and have me throw them batting practice...kids from 8-12 years old, all taking turns, for almost 2 hours...My arm was shot...But we had a blast...
I was proud that parents asked to have their kid put on my team...I was surprised when at a high school football game this year with my oldest, multiple kids that had been on my teams, walked up and said "Hi coach!"
I'm not trying to toot my horn here...I'm not the best coach...I wasn't the best coach in the league...But kids on my teams got better each season, and they had fun...I learned more each year, about baseball, about kids, and myself...I'm proud of my time coaching, and I hope I can find a way back to it some day soon...
I miss practices...I miss games...I don't miss saying, "Stop playing with the dirt!" (the t-ball days)....I miss a bit of the chaos...I miss getting on the Ump for a bad call...I miss coaching...I miss Baseball...
Now, I'm going to get a drink, and sit in the dark with my friends Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane...
