Three Jazz Guitar Chestnuts 

JGT contributor Joe Barth provides some of his Christmas favorites. Thanks Joe!

Wes Montgomery: “Greensleeves” (“What Child is This?”) from the album Road Song: A&M Records

“What Child is This” is a Christmas carol written by a twenty-nine-year-old businessman in Glasgow, Scotland, William Chatterton Dix in 1865.  The lyric is to be sung to the tune “Greensleeves.”  It poses the question that the shepherds may have had as they went off to Bethlehem after experiencing the angelic vision in the night sky.

In May of 1968, Creed Taylor assembled pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Richard Taylor, and other musicians for what would become Wes’s last recording session.  Wes would die of a heart attack a month later.  Don Sebesky arranged the tune in a light Baroque-ish setting where Wes and his octaves gloriously state the melody and embellish it.

Ed Bickert: (in the Rob McConnell Trio) “The Christmas Waltz” from A Concord Jazz Christmas: Concord Records

On a hot August afternoon in 1954, composer Jule Styne calls his partner, lyricist Sammy Cahn, and says, “Frank wants a Christmas song.” The two thought, “How could we ever top Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’, which was a huge hit for Bing Crosby.  Well, the songwriting team wrote this song as a “B” side for Frank Sinatra’s recording of “White Christmas.”

Ed Bickert is at his best here with his longtime friend and collaborator, trombonist Rob McConnell, as well as bassist Neil Swainson.  For the solos, they seamlessly slip into a swinging groove.

Kenny Burrell: “The Christmas Song”: From Have Yourself a Soulful Little Christmas:  Cadet Records 1966

On a hot July day in Hollywood, California, in 1945, lyricist Robert Wells wanted some relief from the summer heat.  This was pre-air-conditioning Southern California so relief was not as easy as it is now.  So, he began sketching phrases like “Jack Frost nipping… Yuletide carols… Folks dressed up like Eskimos…” thinking that cool thoughts might cool himself down.  Forty minutes later Mel Torme’ and he had the song written.

In October of 1966, guitarist Kenny Burrell and arranger Richard Evans went into the Tel Mar Studios in Chicago to record an album of Christmas songs. For their rendition of “The Christmas Song,” Kenny states the melody with a clarinet countermelody before moving into a swinging feel. 

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