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This week's contestant is Colleen Studnick from Katy, Texas. And I didn’t have a clue. Remarkably, the contestant got both the hidden song (quickly, she said) and composer style, so there’s hope for other folks. On second listening, I could hear the hidden song – sort of – but it’s very well hidden, since it's extremely popular. And the composer style just isn’t a genre I know well, though the answer is someone very well-known, and I was far off.
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On this week’s Al Franken podcast, his guests are Pulitzer-Winning Infectious Disease Journalist Laurie Garrett and former. Medicare & Medicaid Head Andy Slavitt who both talk about “the Covid Spike, the Vaccines, & Trump’s Negligent Homicide.” As Al puts it, “The Good News: The Vaccines. The Bad News: Covid Surge & Trump Blocking Coordination Between His Team & Biden’s.”
We close out this year's Holiday Music Fest with a sketch that Saturday Night Live did in 2014 to parody the famous Christmas caroling scene in the movie Love Actually with guest host Amy Adams and Pete Davidson. It got dropped from the broadcast because of time, which is a shame, since it's so fun and offbeat -- but happily they posted the dress rehearsal version online to live on. Earlier during the Fest, I posted a song from one of my favorite holiday albums, Christmas Goes Baroque by Peter Breiner. This is another of my favorites -- it's called Yulestride, performed by pianist Butch Thompson. Thompson was a long-time music director of A Prairie Home Companion. In fact, I think he was the second one, after the Powdermilk Biscuit Band. "Stride" is a kind of Dixieland jazz, which is how he arranged all the songs and plays them. And that's what I love about the album, its freshness of style. That's a tricky thing with Christmas recordings. Most are just pretty straight-forward arrangements that are familiar and comfortable. Stray too far off that path, and you risk the artistic sin of drawing attention to yourself and away from the work. The "I'm being different for the sake of being different" syndrome. The new arrangements aren't inherently valid for the music, but just because the artist didn't want to be The Same. I find this arrangements by Butch Thompson, though, to be vibrant and thoroughly joyful interpretations of the familiar, that bring out different sides to the music. (If you like the music, you can find Yulestride here. The CD is out of distribution, so it's a bit pricey, but the MP3 files can be downloaded for a very reasonable price.) By the way, though he left A Prairie Home Companion eventually, and Richard Dworskin took over the musical director chores, when they made the PHC movie a few years ago, they thoughtfully brought back Butch Thompson to appear in it -- if not in a featured role, at least sitting in. Here are a couple of songs from the album that I particularly love. The first is "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," which might be one of the last songs you'd think of with stride jazz. But it works as it eventually kicks in his fingers fly across the keyboard. Everything on the CD isn't just like this, but it's all with this sensibility and flavor. And from the other end of the spectrum, slowed down and full of lovely stride texture, we'll follow that up with "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen."
Falling under the "Fest" part of the gala, this is a video I always enjoy for the season from the Conan show. It's about his effort to come up with a Secret Santa gift for one of his staff members. And as it's about getting a gift, this seems a good day for it. Every year around this time, there are articles about which recorded version of A Christmas Carol is "the best." Usually it comes down to the films that starred either Alistair Sim or Reginald Owen. But for me, it's this one. It's not a movie, though, or a TV production. It's, of all things, an audio version that was done in 1960 for, I believe, the BBC. It's quite wonderful and as good an adaptation of the story as I've come across. It stars Sir Ralph Richardson as Scrooge, and Oscar-winner Paul Scofield as Dickens, the narrator. Casts don't get much better than that. I first heard this on radio station WFMT in Chicago which has been playing this every Christmas Eve for many decades. Eventually, I found it on audio tape. I've listened to it annually since I was a kidling. Some years I think I won't listen to it this year, but put it on for a few minutes for tradition's sake -- but after the first sentence it sucks me in. There are four reasons why, for me, this is far and away the best version. But one reason leaps out. First, the acting is as good as it gets. Scofield is crisp and emphatic as the narrator, and almost every creak of his voice draws you in to the world, and Richardson as Scrooge is a Christmas pudding joy. Second, being radio, you aren't limited by budgets to create the Dickensian world. Your imagination fills in every lush and poverty-stricken, nook and cranny -- and ghostly spirit, aided by moody sound effects and violins. Third, the adaptation sticks closely to the Dickens tale, and Scrooge comes across more a realistic, rounded-person than as a Mythic Icon. And fourth, and most of all by far, unlike any of the other version, this includes...Dickens. While the story of A Christmas Carol is beloved, it's Dickens' writing that makes it even more vibrant than the story alone is. And that's all lost in the movie versions, even down even to the legendary opening line, "Marley was dead, to begin with." Or any of the other classic narrative lines. (Like my favorite, when Scrooge first comes in contact with a ghost and was "as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.") Or the richness of Dickens setting the mood and tone and description of the gritty and ephemeral and emotional world. All that's gone in movies, good as the productions may be. But all of that is here in this radio adaptation, and Scofield's reading of it is joyously wonderful and memorable. For many, this will be A Christmas Carol unlike any other you're aware of, giving it a meaning and richness you didn't realize was there. The ending of the tale is so much more moving and joyful here, as we listen to Dickens' own words, that begin with "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more," and it soars from there, to perhaps my favorite extended passage about the new Scrooge and how good he is in the "good old world. Or any other good old world." If you have the time or inclination, do give it a listen. If only for five minutes to at least get the flavor. You might find yourself sticking around. Let it play in the background, if you have other things to do. It runs about 55 minutes. (Side note: speaking of Dickens, if you know the original cast album of Oliver!, the actor here who plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, Willoughby Goddard, was Mr. Bumble on Broadway and also in the original London production.) Normally I would post this later in the evening -- but given the various time zones across the country, I thought that I'd get it embedded earlier to give as many listeners as possible the chance to hear it on Christmas Eve. This might not play immediately, since it's a large file and may have to buffer first. But be patient, it's worth it.   |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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