Christmas Greeting 2023

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

It’s almost Christmas, the holiday of new beginning, news most welcome at the end of a hard year. As always, lists of those who left us and the “best of 2023” (movies, books, music etc.) take their place alongside current news both tragic and comic. I barely have time to read them, let alone create another one!

So, as I wish you the best for this holiday season, I’ll share one song that is new to me. I usually don’t care for popular Christmas music (Sorry Brenda, but I do thank you for upstaging Mariah this year). Then. . .

Some friends told me there was an acclaimed pedal steel player coming to play our little town around Thanksgiving. Turns out he was here for an extended personal visit and squeezed in three performances. I went to them all.

It is hard to describe what Dave Easley does with an instrument usually seen in country bands. He delivered jazz from Coltrane, Coleman, and Corea, pop from the Beatles and Beach Boys, rock from the Dead and Zeppelin, standards like “Stella by Starlight,” and originals that don’t sound like anything that comes out of Nashville country music.

When I went home to do some internet reading about Easley, I found this NPR spotlight on the song, “Jesus Maria.”

Never heard of it; the article noted that it had been written by pianist Carla Bley, who died this year at 87. Known for her innovative compositions and swaggering big-band arrangements, Bley released a Christmas album in 2009, mostly carols and a few holly-jolly songs, even “Jingle Bells.” They were jazz arrangements performed with a brass quintet, not just jazzed-up versions.

Bley was clear that she did not celebrate Christmas or any other holiday. But having grown up in a Christian household (her parents met at Moody Bible Institute), she found that the music stuck with her better than anything else.

She kept a file of Christmas music, hoping someday to put together a concert that eventually became Carla’s Christmas Carols. There were two of her original compositions: “Hells Bells,” and “Jesus Maria” (because she wanted to honor both Jesus and his mother). “Jesus Maria” is much older, first released in 1961 by Jimmy Guiffre.

“I want it to be classical,” she said about the album. “I want it to be something that you can listen to at Christmas that isn't that schlock you hear in box stores. And I think a lot of other people want that, too.”

I know I do, and I’m not alone. You can search out the many covers of “Jesus Maria,” but I like this one from Leo Kottke:

Peace.