Music Post, episode 7: Jingle Bells, like you've never heard it before.

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From Thanksgiving until Christmas day, we're barraged with holiday-themed music, but so much of it is bland, generic and worn. In this episode, we listen to some Christmas music that's really worth getting excited about, and find out what distinguishes it from the seventeen versions you'll hear in the supermarket in the next couple of weeks. Featuring excerpts from Gabriela Montero and Oscar Peterson. The playing of the former has been a source of inspiration and a bit of depression for me over the last several years, and in the episode you'll start to hear why.

Here is a link to my own album of original compositions, including Christmas ones, mentioned in the episode.

And here are the three performances excerpted in the episode:

The quick but uncreative Jonny May
The incomparable Gabriela Montero
The delightfully smooth Oscar Peterson