Don’t you just hate the holidays? Don’t answer that. If anything this time of the year teaches us is that we need to find ways to forgive and move forward. Don’t you just hate Christmas music? Don’t answer that. I used to. Now, I’ve seen the light (so to speak). Perhaps this whole month I’ve been prepping y’all for what’s becoming unofficially my yearly Christmas offering. Can you love smooth jazz now a bit better? If I’ve tuned your ears a bit more to the softer size of noodling, I think you’re prepared to listen to one of my favorite collection of Christmas songs from that unlikely of sources: GRP Records.
Much like Biblical Judas, many sins have been laid on the feet of one Dave Grusin. “True” jazz cats blame him for the smoothing out of jazz radio. “Real” musicians hate him for spurning analog recording for new-fangled digital recording and mastering — “Where’s the soul in that?” they proclaim. Vast swathes of music from his label have filled the coffers of many dentist offices, weather stations, early VH-1 programming, and hold music, we’ve all had to sit through.
I’m here to espouse that this holiday season we set aside our pitchforks aimed at the smoothest of jazz and accept its forgiveness, through tidings in the form of A GRP Christmas Collection.
Like all holiday albums I have a theory most fall under these categories: terrible, unmemorable, enjoyable, and transcendent. At the top are the unimpeachable ones that get you in the spirit — Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown’s Christmas, MUJI’s 1980-2000, Ella’s Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas, Sinatra’s A Jolly Christmas, and Steve Erquiaqa’s A Time for Joy: Reflections in Guitar, are a few start with — capturing that saudade behind a truer Christmas feeling. For every well-earned joy there is just a tiny smidge of reflection on what the true meaning for this season really is. For every god-awful holiday song there is just a smidgeon of glossy superficiality that threatens to wreck your mood when you happen upon it.
With all that being said, what surprises me about GRP’s collection from their roster of highly proficient musos like Tom Scott, Lee Ritenour, and Gary Burton, is that they all tap into wonderful reimaginings of standards in a way that doesn’t scream “hash it out…you’re a pro”. You can tell there was actual thought and reflection behind Yutaka’s glorious rethinking of Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas”.
What about fretless bassist Mark Egan’s pointillist take on “What Child Is This?” (somewhere Isiah must have shed a tear to this one). Then, as if by some Christmas miracle, we hear Kevin Eubanks (!!!), of all people, deliver one of the best renditions of “Silver Bells” you’ll ever prick your ears to — like peak-era Codona jamming on the softest lullaby for, perhaps, one truly special child. Creating a track that both soothes and excites in a way that the original (I imagine) was never intended to.
Ending on the ‘G’ in GRP’s namesake, its founder, Dave Grusin, that old bag, delivers a fitting, quite elegiac, impressionistic piano coda in “Some Children See Him” whisking you off to bed (or sending you home), making you wonder just for a little bit that “hey, maybe, just maybe I’d like to share this one with others”.
Here’s to you sharing this one with others any right time of this season…