Another Swingin’ Christmas with the Pete Ellman Big Band

It would be hard to find a bag of seasonal songs more mixed than these: Spirituals of unknown provenance; popular songs, including songs from Broadway, and country and western ditties; a father’s grieving over his son’s Civil War injury; a traditional Hispanic greeting in a bouncy four-beat; a children’s counting song; and a wistful Christmastide favorite penned by a Russian Jewish immigrant… We hope you like this seasonal potpourri.

I’ll be Home for Christmas – Gannon & Kent, 1943 This song was written for Bing Crosby 78 rpm disc (the flip side was his version of “Danny Boy”), and is obviously from the point of view of a soldier serving away from home. Decca Records released the single in October 1943, and it hit the top of the charts within a month. Curiously, it was banned to British troops overseas; their leadership felt it would be demoralizing. Buck Ram, who wrote for the Platters, claimed in court that the song infringed one he had written with similar material, and eventually he was listed as a co-writer.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day –(Words: 1863; Music: 1956) The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this poem after his son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, a lieutenant in the Union Army, was wounded at the Battle of New Hope Church (Virginia) in November of 1863. Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day that year after visiting his severely wounded son in the hospital. This setting utilizes four verses – the first, second, sixth, and seventh of Longfellow’s original seven. It was originally set to the martial hymn tune “Waltham”, by the organist John B. Calkin, but the prevailing version today owes its tune to John David Marks, a Jewish WWII veteran who also composed the music for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas”.

Feliz Navidad – Feliciano (1970) This is a macaronic that is, mixed-language song, which was written and first recorded in 1970 by Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Jose Feliciano. He played both an acoustic guitar and a Puerto Rican cuatro, and was originally accompanied only by a drummer, Paulinho Magalhaes; but the record producer had horn accompaniments dubbed afterwards. The Spanish words, of course, carry a Christmas greeting, Happy Christmas, and a prosperous New Year.

Children Go Where I Send Thee – Traditional This is a cumulative song, of which several are known; “Green Grow the Rushes” may be familiar to some, and a Hebrew song, “Echad Mi Yodea”, uses a similar structure. They may also relate to a nineteenth-century English children’s counting song. In both this spiritual and “Rushes”, the verses have references which are at least partly Biblical; the chorus here clearly refers to Jesus as “one”, and because He is described as a baby, this song has a Christmas association. But other verses are more difficult to fathom—there has been a lot of distortion, substitution, and loss, so a truly “original” version is lacking. The Chorus’ version goes only to ten (the Ten Commandments—that allusion is shared with “Rushes”), but some versions count to twelve (“twelve for the twelve apostles, eleven for the eleven that went to heaven,…”). “Echad Mi Yodea” goes to thirteen.

Need a Little Christmas – Herman (1966) From Jerry Herman’s “Mame”, in which Mame sings it after losing her fortune in the ’29 crash. Herman sensed a dismal mood in 1966 USA, and as Christmas that year approached, he noticed that people were a little more upbeat. And so he added a bouncy Christmas song for Mame’s character.

Most Wonderful Time of the Year – Pola /Wyle (1963) This song was written by Edward Pola and George Wyle for an “Andy Williams Christmas” TV special, the second of those annual programs. It was on the Andy Williams Christmas album released in October ’63 (but White Christmas remained the album theme!). It became #5 of Billboard’s Top 10 Holiday Songs in 2009.

Go Tell It on the Mountain –Traditional John Wesley Work Jr., native of Nashville, a professor of classical Latin and Greek and the son of a church choir director, became the first African- American collector of spirituals. (Interestingly, his timing closely parallels other early collectors of folk music, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams in England, and the Lomaxes in the US.) This spiritual, with obvious connections to the Nativity, was part of Work’s second book, published in 1907.

White Christmas – Berlin (1942) Written for the film “Holiday Inn”, it was sung by Bing Crosby, with his co-star Marjorie Reynolds (but her voice was dubbed by Martha Mears!). Crosby’s recording became the best-selling single of all time, with more than 50 million copies sold, and the song has also been a top seller for many covers.

Here Comes Santa Claus – Autry / Haldeman (1947) Gene Autry, the original “singing cowboy”, was riding his horse (trivia question: What was the horse’s name in the screen credits?) in the 1946 Santa Claus Lane Parade (now the Hollywood Christmas Parade), when he heard shouts of “Here comes Santa Claus”. It stuck with him, and he wrote a set of lyrics that Oakley Haldeman set to music. Autry recorded it in 1947, and used it in at least one movie. It was a hit in both popular and country-western milieus.

Lights the Candle Still – Bob Kase This song is special: First of all, it is new, unpublished music, composed by a player in tonight’s Ellman Band. This song is special in another way: In the midst of holiday joy, it is a song of loss– loss of a loved one, perhaps a spouse or significant other. The holiday season exacerbates the wound: “It [the holiday] fills my heart up with love for your touch– leaving me alone…”.

As a widower myself, I know exactly how the narrator feels. The song communicates his (or her) feelings without being maudlin or weepy; one can even feel the undercurrent in the music itself. This, in a sense, underlines one of the things Christmas is about: A sensitivity to the feelings of others. A really notable contribution to our holiday literature.

J. R. Fancher 2018