YOUR Favorite Holiday Albums (and New Picks)

[A&M Retro]

Well, I should have prefaced WHY I made the mix as I did....
The compilation was in response to a request for a Carpenters Christmas CD. The person who asked for it is not much of a fan, so i was trying to create ONE CD of 'best of the best' to keep it casual-fan friendly.

I do love both albums in their entirety, but I didn't think 15 minutes of Richard's singing and instrumentals leading up to "Home for the Holidays" would make much sense to a casual fan. When people think of the Carpenters, most think of Karen's voice. I did include about 15 minutes of instrumentals, too, so Richard gets his time in the spotlight, too, and it all fits on one CD.

 

[Rudy]

That reminds me of the single CD I made. It's the entire Christmas Portrait album. Before "Winter Wonderland", I inserted all of the KC vocal tracks from Old Fashioned, and two of Richard's instrumental features, all segued together nicely. After juggling the order of the Old Fashioned tracks around a bit, I find it plays really nice that way.

Sure beats the butchered version of Christmas Portrait that first came out on CD. I played it once or twice and shelved it.

 

[A&M Retro]

I agree! I made a mix of both albums where I used my DJ mixer to segue from one album to another. It was both albums in their entirety with Karen singing at least every few minutes. That way, there weren't too many instrumental passages playing at once, and it made the albums 'flow' much better.
Sounds like we think alike! LOL>>

 

[Rudy]

I had a mixer around here somewhere...but I used CD Architect. That program is incredible, especially since you can have two "timelines" and overlap tracks if you need to. Made those segues smooth as buttah.

I used to use both inputs on my Harman/Kardon tape deck to do "live" mix tapes. Thing is, if I messed up once, I'd have to rewind the tape and start over. Those were the days!

 

[A&M Retro]

I remember those days!! I loved making tapes with my mixer, though starting over SUCKED.

 

[Rudy]

My mixer actually didn't sound that good (it had a bit of noise), so I made a set of cables with 1/4" microphone plugs on one end and RCA jacks on the other. The H/K cassette deck has a pair of microphone inputs on the front with a separate level control. I fed the output of a phono preamp into that one, and the normal setup with my better turntable through the Hafler preamp. I missed a lot of the mixer's features (the "preview" especially), but made do.

Since the second turntable was direct drive, I could stop it, back-cue the record, and hold it in place until I needed it to start. Since it wasn't a high-torque motor, I queued records so they'd start playing one revolution after I released the platter.

CD Architect is a LOT of fun to use, but I still miss doing the tapes. I may get inspired to go TOTALLY retro and use the reel-to-reel deck one of these years.

 

[seashorepiano]

Favorite Christmas music here would include Jimmy Smith's Christmas Cookin' on Verve, also known in CD reissue as Christmas '64. The big band arrangements therein are a little weird (particularly the intro on "We Three Kings"), but overall it's a good brass sound with some little bits of hard swing from the master organist. His cover of "The Christmas Song" can't be beat.

Though he didn't record it on a Christmas album, Bill Evans does a moving cover of "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" on his Further Conversations with Myself. The entire album is solo piano, overdubbed. This is a follow-up album to his earlier Conversations with Myself.

I play Ella's ...Wishes You a Swinging Christmas album, but I can take it only in small doses. The arrangements are nice, but after a while there's a "sameness" to the proceedings that I need to interrupt with... Bill Evans! Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops A Christmas Festival also gets heavy play around here, as does Keith Lockhart's own Christmas album with the same orchestra. But I prefer Fiedler over Lockhart.

 

[Rudy]

Bill Evans does "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" on Trio 64 also. I used to put it on some of my jazz holiday compilations.

 

[seashorepiano]

True. But I personally don't like that version as much as the solo.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I had a mixer around here somewhere...but I used CD Architect.

I agree, that program is awesome...but it won't work with my new computer! If I go to burn a disk, I get a "Scanning for CD Devices..." message and from there, it's locked up. Not even CTRL-ALT-DEL will free it -- gotta unplug and reboot. What's weird is, I used it on my previous machine just fine and both machines are Dells running XP. I'm determined to get it fixed because I'm really spoiled from the CD-A features.

 

[Rudy]

Makes me wonder what part of the device drivers isn't communicating there. Sometimes it's as easy as a firmware upgrade for the CD burner, or installing an updated device driver. And you'd think someone else has had the same problem, and could offer advice.

 

[JeffM]

Yeah...when he croons "Rudy the red-beaked reindeer" it always gets a smile out of me!

Not to mention when he (as Santa?) slips into a bogus German dialect, "Rrrrrudolph, mit your nose so brrrright, vont'cha guide mine schleigh tonight?"

 

[JeffM]

I seem to be playing only 7 Christmas CDs right now:

But that's only in the car -- when I open my iTunes colelction while I'm in my garage/office I find myself listening to:
A Toolbox Christmas (all sounds by sampled tools)
my mp3-ized tracks from Something Festive
Both Chipmunks Christmas records
and the Jingle Cats (and the dog version) recordings -- yeah, I'm a sucker for sampled sounds being made into music...
And a number of Dr. Demento Christmas cuts...
--Mr Bill

Here's to the Chipmunks, Jingle Cats, Singing Dogs, and all the other Christmas cartoon critters. Actually, while the Jingle Cats involved sampling; the Singing Dogs, like the Chipmunks, were pure 50's technology. They recorded assorted dogs barking at various pitches, made endless duplicates of the best barks, then spliced them together one at a time with a razor blade and splice tape! (I assume they used arf-inch tape and tested their woofers...) The Singing Dogs records apparently originated in Denmark.