Oy to the world, et. al.

Times are tough here in Tanuki-land.  The high school connected to our outfit, where I teach one class in literature, has just announced that it will suspend recruitment and close out within a year or two. 

This is, of course, the inevitable result of countless management oversights, blunders, and incredible indifference to its main product: education.  Our outfit is ultimately run by an accountant.  It's kind of like finding yourself signed onto a cross-country bus tour planned and organized by a bus mechanic.   "OK folks, we're going to spend the first two thirds of our trip touring the truck stops of Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas as the flat terrain will be best for the shocks.  And heck, we won't even have to leave the interstates!"

I find it difficult to suppress the nasty wish that those whose are responsible for this pass we've come to will experience at least a part of the confusion and inconvenience (to put it mildly) that the students and staff have gone through.  Though to be honest, the clueless folks concerned may have been so removed from the actual workings of our school that they might never fathom even a tenth of the damage they have done.  Others closer to the action, I'm sure, will have their share of sleepless nights. 

As for the teachers, well, we're in it for the kids, and have to do our best even though it'll mean squat for us careerwise--and it galls  to put in free overtime for a racket that's given you the shaft.  In most jobs, I suppose, the drones treated this shabbily would drag their feet and do the minimum while they wait to be escorted to the front door.  In the meantime, they'd take the sick days.  Shuffle and reshuffle papers and look busy.  But such is not the path of virtue.   

And yet, in spite of it all, 'tis the season...isn't it?   I've been trying to keep my mood up by listening to some good  Christmas music.  Now, far be it from me to shill for anybody, but I've downloaded some true classics from Emusic.  I'm not getting a dime for them, by the way, and this is a purely unsolicited endorsement.  But I hope you'll check out some of these albums and bands.  You can listen to 30 seconds of the cuts for free, and I think you still get 50 free tracks if you sign on.  Or go out and buy the albums individually.  Either way, I'm sure they'll become a part of your Christmases for years to come. 

First stop is Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Anybody (of my approximate generation, at least) will instantly recognize the first few bars of Linus and Lucy, a piano driven, feel-good gem of a swingin' rock piece.  But the rest of the cuts, some featuring a deliberately selected group of amateur kid singers, is so wistful and sweet, the standards so familiar yet so fresh, and the new cuts so charming,  that you'll find that the album will satisfy a wide range of your Christmas moods.   These days, I find it nearly as essential as my morning pot of earl grey to get me going.

Disclaimer:  I am jug band fan.  My first experience of jug band music was with an odd group of guys called the Provincetown Jug Band that played the Boston Irish bars when the Cape was too chilly to find anybody to play to there.  That led me to check out classics like The Memphis Jug Band, newer incarnations like Jim Kweskin, and great compilations like Ruckus Juice and Chitlins.  I guess the  band I played with back at Chuck Wagon Honky Tonk Saloon in Fukushima was a jug band in most ways.  Ah yes, jug music has changed my life.

So it may be an acquired taste, but if you like good time music played loose but well, the vocals just off key enough to sound good, then you'll love the Christmas Jug Band.  Yeah, you'll do the band more good if you order their CDs directly from them, but you can get them for a song, ahem, at emusic.  Band members included grizzled old pros like Dan Hicks, ex Commander Cody members, and Van Morrison and Thunderbirds musicians. 

The Christmas Jug Band has some great originals (these from Rhythm on the Roof) like the polka-flavored stomper "Christmas Time Is Here" (not to be confused with an identically-titled tune from the Guaraldi album) and the homeless Christmas anthem "If I Don't Have a Chimney."  Oh, don't forget the rap song "Santa Don't Do It (Don't Shave on Christmas Eve):"  "Now you may know me as a jolly little FEL-low/But cut the cracks about the belly full of JELL-o." 

I'm also partial to their reworkings of jazz standards as Christmas songs, like "I Know What I'm Getting" ( "Exactly Like You"), "Twas The Night Before Christmas" ("Ain't Misbehavin"), "I'm Your Santa As Seen on TV" ("Sheik of Araby"), etc.   There are some songs you may want to play after you tuck the kids in for their long winter's nap, such as Uncorked's  "Santa Lost A Ho:"

But there ain't no joy cause just one toy is missin' from Santa's shack                             Cause he's never had a doll go AWOL once he got her in the sack.

The Christmas Jug Band plays the spectrum, from standards to blues to rap to rock, but if you want to swing hard for Christmas, The BSO is the way to go.  No, not the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Brian Setzer Orchestra.  He takes the Stray Cats' Rockabilly back to it's swing/boogie woogie roots and melds the power of an amped-up Gretsch to a full jazz band.  They make Christmas swing like mad.  There are two albums available, Boogie Woogie Christmas and Dig That Crazy Santa Claus.   I hope more are coming.

Now, I like Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby Christmas stuff as much as any body else, but I also enjoy Christmas tunes with a little edge, preferably as sharp as the shards of a shattered ornament.  The Klezmonauts have this edge, ecumenically putting chestnuts like "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen" and "Joy to the World" to a Klezmer beat.  And they don't stop there.  It's a rare cut on their album that doesn't shift genres at least two or three times; you'll hear strains of the Ventures, Ennio Morricone, James Brown, salsa, blues, and rock.  By all means, listen to Oy to the World and celebrate the birth of the world's most famous Jew.

Time to slow things down?  One of my students eats lunch in my office, and thought the Klezmonauts and Brian Setzer were"Kurisumasu rashikunai (not Christmassy).  He gave me no complaints with this album by guitar master Charlie Byrd.  Byrd's most famous for his bossa nova work with Stan Getz, but has a nice touch with the standards, as a listen to these albums will prove.  Being an amateurish guitar player myself (I won't dignify myself with the moniker of amateur), I care more about music than musicianship, and Byrd's the kind of musician that seems bent on crafting beautiful music rather than displaying his chops or carving out a place for himself among the innovators.  God save us from those who would save us from our own better judgment, music-wise.

Oh yes, there are more albums, like the blues-soul compilation "Merry Christmas, Baby;" my favorite active band, the Asylum Street Spankers' offering "A Christmas Spanking" (featuring a hauntingly beautiful "Silent Night" played on the saw!), the lounge lizard's dream, "Silent Nightclub," (featuring "Christmas in Las Vegas"), etc.  Check out this emusic member's list, which he calls "Christmas music which sucks slightly less than usual."

Bullshit.  S/he loves it as much as I do.  All year I gaze longingly at my Christmas music CD folder, and am in my glory when the Macy's parade finally gives us the OK to stark cranking the Christmas tunes.   

Comments

[John A. Abel]

I saw the P-Town Jug Band hundreds of times summers from 1977-81 in Provincetown and many times in Boston Bars and our Northeastern Univ. Frat.I keep in touch with some of the guys but Geno Haggerty passed away several years ago at 67.Geno was the lead guy with the froggy voice and the ponytail and a great friend.I have several tapes of them and one entire night at The Surfclub in Provincetown I taped in the mid 80's on a EMI records studio tape player.They played all over in the early 80's off season even one winter for a few weeks at Captain Tony's in Key West.

[Sharon Dwinell]

I grew up in Ptown & have always been a fan of the Jug Band in their many incarnations over the years. One of the guys, Ed Sheridan, recently sent me a link that had music files from a gig at MIT in 86. They actually played a couple of times up here in Vt in the late 80's.