Sunday, December 08, 2024

Jazz Up the Holidays

Began the morning with breakfast and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. "Mickey Saves Santa" when he's stranded on top of Mistletoe Mountain. Donald goes with Mickey and Mrs. Claus up the mountain, hoping that Santa will give him everything on his long wish list. Mrs. Claus keeps admonishing him to "be nice!", but that's not the easiest thing in the world for Donald!

Hurried off to work soon as the episode ended. Once again, the rush wasn't necessary. Not only were we pretty quiet, but the morning bagger was there the entire time I was. We were joined in the last hour by the afternoon bagger, too. In fact, I have no idea why they had three baggers today. It got a little busy before the Eagles-Panthers game started, but once the game began, our customers ended. 

The nice weather might have helped, too. It was gorgeous today, sunny, windy, and in the mid-50's, much warmer than it has been! Not a cloud in the pale blue sky. You'd never know it's supposed to rain tomorrow and Wednesday. 

I heard part of the Eagles game at the Christmas tree lot in the back of the parking lot, but it was on Fox and I wasn't able to watch it at home. I read later that the Eagles didn't do that well against a team that isn't great to begin with, but their defense held the Panthers back long enough for them to win 22-16. 

Spent the rest of the afternoon after I got home and changed adding more records to the Seasonal inventory. Finished the albums for the fall holidays and added the Christmas albums with non-vocal jazz, classical, or new age music. All of the records I added today were purchased within the last two years but the original A Winter's Solstice, which I picked up from an Oaklyn yard sale in May 2012. 

Listened to more Christmas albums while I worked, and later as I had dinner. I've had the soundtrack from A Charlie Brown Christmas since at least the late 2000's. It was one of the first Christmas albums I bought after I started collecting records, and it remains one of my favorites. "Christmastime Is Here" and "Linus and Lucy" are the best-known songs, but my favorites are the opening "O Tannenbaum" and the song that plays while the kids are "Skating." 

New England Sleigh Ride seems to have been made for sale at Mobil gas stations, probably sometime in the 50's-early 60's from the front cover. I have no idea who Robert Way is, but some of the songs on this jazzy recording are really well-done. Favorites of his original songs likely written for the recording include "Christmas With You" and "Snowflakes On the Windowpanes."

Home for Christmas is a 3-disc Columbia collection with a lovely photo on the front cover of a red sleigh passing a snow-covered farm against the backdrop of a radiant blue winter sky. It was missing Record One when I found it years ago, but there's some good material to be found on the other two albums, including a nice "Ave Maria" by the Philadelphia Orchestra, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by Burl Ives, and music  boxes playing "The Holy City."

I found Jingle Bell Jazz at Innergroove Records in June, and I'm glad I did. There's some terrific material in this 1980 re-release of a 1962 album, along with a really nifty stark black-and-white cover depicting a city blizzard at Christmastime. The hilarious "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" by Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross is the clear winner here. Duke Ellington opens the album with a nice "Jingle Bells," Carmen McRae gets "The Christmas Song," and we have a rather surprising version of "If I Were a Bell" from Guys and Dolls performed by the Manhattan Jazz All-Stars.

Finished the night at YouTube with tonight's Match Game Sunday Classics Marathon. Match Game often featured hosts from other shows. Usually, they were just there as a publicity stunt, as when Jack Narz plugged Now You See It in 1974 and Tom Kennedy advertised Password Plus in 1981. Peter Marshall turned up on two weeks of the syndicated run because Gene Rayburn was a friend of his, and Gene apparently appeared on one of the last syndicated weeks of Hollywood Squares. Amiable Bill Cullen was the only classic host to be a semi-regular, starting in 1973 and continuing on through the run of Blockbusters in 1981. Other hosts and announcers who made appearances on the show include Robert Q. Lewis in 1973, Gene Wood in 1974, and Bob Eubanks and Chuck Woolery on The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour. 

Match along with your favorite classic game show hosts in this frequently outrageous marathon!

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