Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Revered drummer Jeff Hamilton reunites with his trio, featuring bassist Jon Hamar and pianist Tamir Hendelman, for “Merry & Bright,” a recording of Hamilton’s favorite Christmas songs. The tunes were selected from the drummer’s memories growing up in a family where everyone gathered around the piano and sang Christmas tunes in four-part harmony. Two of the pieces he learned from The Singers Unlimited, whose textured vocal harmonies were reminiscent of Hamilton’s evenings singing with the family.
Singer Kat Edmonson was fresh off the heels of her critically acclaimed “Dreamers Do” album last year and in the midst of a 40-city tour across the country when COVID struck, forcing her back home. It was there where she created a weekly on-line variety show performed from her living room, taking live requests, performing skits, and hosted holiday specials. Her Christmas show saw over 12,000 viewers. For this holiday season, Kat has reinterpreted a batch of classics for a new Christmas album, “Holiday Swingin’! A Kat Edmonson Christmas Vol. 1.”
Also this week, the Pete Ellman Big Band from the Chicagoland area swings the season with “The Twelve Grooves of Christmas,” proceeds from which are putting instruments in the hands of up-and-coming music students;
singer Norah Jones unveils her first holiday release, “I Dream of Christmas”;
and Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band presents “The Reset,” a disc which serves as tribute to Gordon’s mentor, the great arranger Sammy Nestico, who passed in January.