My wife Nancy and I will try to go to a friend's party this New Year's Eve, after last year's plans were derailed by the  sudden illness of our mini-dachsunds, Angus and Hamish. To all who are traveling on an evening that often becomes "amateur night" take extra care and pick that designated driver!

A perennial favorite song for New Year's Eve, and the Offical SNC Song of the evening is Frank Loesser's classic, "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?". Written in 1947, when Loesser was already an accomplished songwriter, having co-written hits like "Two Sleepy People" and "Spring Will Be a Little Late this Year".

However, his greatest work was just before him - in 1948 he was asked to score "Where's Charley?" for Broadway, which ran for more than two years. Buoyed by this success, Loesser turned out hits like "Guys and Dolls", "The Most Happy Fella" and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". He won two Tony Awards and a Pulizter Prize for Drama for these works. In between, he won an Academy Award for the holiday standard, "Baby It's Cold Outside" from the film "Neptune's Daughter" (1949). Regrettably, Loesser died from cancer at the age of 59 in 1969.

This year's singer is Nancy Wilson. A happy and healthy New Year to one and all.

We lost more than our share of jazz (and jazz-related) men and women this year. We shouldn't let the hub bub of the holidays prevent us from remembering:

Melvin Sparks, (pictured) 64, American jazz and soul guitarist; Paul Motian ,80, American jazz drummer and composer; Al Vega, 90, American jazz pianist.; Dixie Fasnacht, 101, American jazz singer, clarinetist and club owner.; Michael Garrick, 78, English jazz pianist and composer.; Jimmy Norman, 74, American rhythm and blues and jazz musician and songwriter.; Gordon Beck, 75, British jazz pianist and composer; André Hodeir, 90, French author, jazz arranger and composer; Walter Norris, 79, American jazz pianist.; Beryl Davis, 87, British big band singer and actress; Lars Sjösten, 70, Swedish jazz pianist and composer; Butch Ballard, 92, American jazz drummer; Uan Rasey, 90, American film trumpeter; Johnny Răducanu, 79, Romanian jazz musician; Graham Collier, 74, British jazz bassist; Eddie Marshall, 73, American jazz drummer; Ralph McDonad, 67, American percussionist and songwriter and Frank Foster, 82, American jazz saxophonist and composer.

Also Ross Barbour, 82, American singer, the last founding member of The Four Freshmen Odell Brown, 70, American jazz organist and songwriter;  Jiří Traxler, 99, Czech-born Canadian jazz pianist; Amy Winehouse, 27, British singer-songwriter; Lil Greenwood, 86, American vocalist (Duke Ellington Orchestra).; Fonce Mizell, 68, American jazz and R&B record producer (one of the Mizell Brothers); Zim Ngqawana, 51, South African jazz saxophonist; Elfa Secioria, 51, Indonesian jazz pianist; and Cornell Dupree, 68, American jazz and R&B guitarist.

Also Clarence Clemons, 69, saxophone player for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band;  Odell Brown, 70, American jazz organist and songwriter of “Sexual Healing”; Phoebe Snow, 60, American singer-songwriter; Billy Bang, 63, American jazz violinist; Blues musicians Pinetop Perkins, 97, and David "Honeyboy" Edwards,96; Kym Bonython, 90, Australian art, jazz and speedway entrepreneur; Erling Kroner, 67, Danish trombonist and bandleader; David Shapiro, 58, American jazz musician; Eugenio Toussaint, 56, Mexican composer and jazz musician; Tony Levin, 71, British jazz drummer; Eddie Mordue, 83, British saxophonist; Barrie Lee Hall, Jr., 61, American jazz trumpeter and band leader (Duke Ellington); Margaret Whiting, 86, American singer (“Moonlight in Vermont”); and Charles Fambrough, 60, American jazz musician and composer.

Others passing who I have followed or have had some sort of an impact on me one way or another include Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the famous “suicide doctor”; Apple founder Steve Jobs; Don Kirshner, the American record producer and songwriter, host of Don Kirshner's Rock Concert; baseball greats Duke Snider and Harmon Killebrew; football greats Bubba Smith and  John Mackey; writer Tom Wicker; cartoonist Bill Keane, creator  of “The Family Circus”; boxer Joe Frazier; the owner of the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis; composers Jerry Leiber and Nick Ashford; Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of The Brady Bunch; actors Peter Falk and Cliff Robertson; and Barry Feinstein, the photographer who shot more than 500 album covers, including the iconic Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin’ and George Harrison's All Things Must Pass.

Motéma Music is proud to announce its collaboration with Media Voices for Children on a short film titled A Gift. Produced by Media Voices, the project is a new cultural music video set to music from jazz pianist Geri Allen's new Christmas album, A Child Is Born (released on Motéma, October 11). Now available for viewing on YouTube, the filmmakers and Allen present the film as a gift to the public during this holiday season. In return, the public is encouraged to make donations to Media Voices and/or Media Voice's project, Kenyan SchoolHouse (both non-profit initiatives). Donors who donate $100 or more will receive a gift of Allen's album.

Produced by filmmakers Len and Georgia Morris, the film was inspired by the children they encountered while visiting Kenya this past September. As they traveled the length and breadth of Kenya, crisscrossing the country for three weeks, the Morris' handed out 650 lollipops to the children they met along the way.

"Having made documentaries about children's human rights for over a decade, I could see the futures of these impoverished kids. We wanted to touch and change each of their lives, to bring them the food they lack, the educations they'll never have, health, happiness and the security of childhood. Instead, we had to settle for  'How are you?' a smile and a lollipop with a whistle," says Len.

These moments, along with Allen's music, form the heart of the short video. The film and music 'honor' the beautiful spirits of these children of Kenya, the valuable work of Media Voices for Children and the sacred nature of Allen's music. 

"I am moved and grateful to have my music used in this beautiful film with these beautiful children," reflected Allen after viewing the film for the first time.

Donate to Media Voices and/or Kenyan SchoolHouse (a Media Voices initiative)

Donors who contribute $100 or more will receive a gift of A Child is Born

For more information on Media Voices for Children, visit: mediavoicesforchildren.org

For more infromation on Kenyan SchoolHouse, visit: kenyanschoolhouse.org

A Merry Christmas to you all. I am a practicing Jew who does not celebrate Christmas as the birth of the messiah. However, I can appreciate the universal themes of peace, love and understanding that are prevelant this time of year, and so the Offical Straight No Chaser song of Christmas Day is "Peace", written by Horace Silver, and sung by Norah Jones.

Considered one of the finest ballads of the hard bop era, "Peace" has a timeless message for us all, as the last few lines of the song show:

When you find peace of mind, leave your worries behind
Don't say that it can't be done
With a new point of view, life's true meaning comes to you
And the freedom you seek is won
Peace is for everyone

Silver first recorded this classic fifty-one years ago, on his Blowin' the Blues Away album, one of the last to feature his classic quintet lineup of trumpeter Blue Mitchell, tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Louis Hayes.

A Merry Christmas to one and all.

t's December 24, which means that once again it's time to break out the Official Straight No Chaser Song of Christmas Eve. It's not really a song, actually, but Louis Armstrong reciting "Twas the Night Before Christmas", in his inimitable raspy voice.

Recorded on February 26, 1971 at his home in Queens, New York, this ended up being the final recording Armstrong made, before succumbing to a fatal heart attack on July 6th.

The poem, written by Clement Moore, is technically titled "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas", was first published in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823. A wonderful article by Peter Christoph tells that St. Nicholas was likely little known outside of the Dutch community when he published the work, setting into motion a cultural tradition still alive today. Further, I was surprised to learn it was Moore who first named the reindeer!

Here's hoping you'll be nestled all snug in your beds soon....

The text was written by Phillips Brooks(1835–1893), an Episcopal priest, and rector of the Church of the Holy trinity in Philadelphia, PA.  He was allegeldy inspired by visiting the city of Bethlehem in 1865:

“After an early dinner, we took our horses and rode to Bethlehem,” so he wrote home in Christmas week of 1865. “It was only about two hours when we came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of hills, surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better built than any other we have seen in Palestine. . . . Before dark, we rode out of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with a cave in it (all the Holy Places are caves here), in which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but somewhere in those fields we rode through the shepherds must have been. . . . As we passed, the shepherds were still “keeping watch over their flocks or leading them home to fold.”

Three years later, he wrote the poem for his church and his organist, Lewis Redner added the music. Redner's tune, simply titled "St. Louis", is the tune used most often for this carol in the US. The Heath Brothers, one of the great family acts in jazz history, reinterpreted the classic as "Our Little Town". You can find the track on the A Jazz Christmas compilation CD.

Two of our greatest living pianists, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, contribute dueling keyboards on this wonderful modern interpretation of a Christmas chestnut. Recorded in  1969 with a nonet, that included  trumpeter Woody Shaw, studio guitar legend Al Caiola, and onetime Tonight Show drummer Ed Shaughnessy, the track can be found on the Jingle Bell Swing compilation CD.

The tune is Welsh, likely dating back to the sixteenth century, and belongs to a winter carol, Nos Galan. In the eighteenth century, Mozart used the tune to "Deck the Halls" for a violin and piano duet and, later, Haydn in the song "New Year's Night." The repeated "fa la la" is taken from medieval ballads and used in Nos Galan, while the remaining lyrics are American in origin, probably dating from the nineteenth century.

If you're not  NPR Morning Edition junkies like the Siegel family, you might have missed a great piece this morning about Bob Dorough and Miles Davis' "Blue Xmas", a track I featured as part of the 25 Days of Jazzmas last week. Click here to listen to the story, including talk with Dorough:

"You know, we always called him the Prince of Darkness, and so I thought this was not going to be one of those happy, 'What are you going to bring me for Christmas?' songs...And my point was to emphasize the over-commercialization of Christmas. I was thinking of Miles and the way he lives his life and commends his music. I hope I didn't overdo it."

The same piece includes a talk with John Zorn, whose A Dreamer's Christmas is his first crack at the season's music. Why did  a player known for his avant-garde leanings. a star of the "Radical Jewish Music" scene do an album for Christmas?

Zorn says he has wanted to make a Christmas record for more than a decade. He curates a Jewish music series on his record label, and his first idea was to do an album of Christmas music all written by Jews. Think Irving Berlin's "White Christmas."

"It turned out that a lot of Christmas songs have been written by Jews," says Zorn. "Then, as I got deeper into it, I decided — I mean, that's a funny idea, but I don't want to make any political statement here or do any kind of agenda. I just want to keep it in kind of the secular vein and just celebrate the holiday as, you know, hot-buttered rum and mulled cider and tinsel on the tree and little toys and Santa flying in the air and, you know, those childlike visions."

You can listen to the CD in its entirety here, and read a detailed conversation with Zorn about the album here.