On Thursday. December 19, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra did what they do best – they tossed common musical conventions to the wind while elevating songs to a new level.
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, just back from a two-week tour around the U.S., was welcomed to their Big Band Holidays performance with a rousing round of applause. Standing on their home stage of Rose Theater, the Orchestra played ten songs from a catalog of more than thirty holiday standards ranging from religious to anti-holiday. But these weren’t your normal holiday songs.
“You might have heard Frosty the Snowman before, but you’ve never heard it like this,” Musical Director and Trombone player Christopher Crenshaw said. That was the theme that prevailed throughout the show: you ain’t heard it this way before. Across an hour and a half of music, standard holiday compositions were eschewed for new ways to play, throwing each song into a new context and making the audience consider their perception of just what a holiday song sounds like.
Starting with two classics, the band played a sped-up and swung version of “Here Comes Santa Claus” and then transitioned into an extremely melancholic version of “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.” The first act was spiced up by Robbie Lee singing the anti-holiday song “Blue Xmas (To Whom it May Concern)” and “Merry Christmas Baby.” Lee’s vocal intonation was incredible – moving from a gravelly embodiment of the Grinch in “Blue Xmas” to clear and pure desire in “Merry Christmas Baby.”
However, the pinnacle of the first set was Sherman Irby’s solo in the “Merry Christmas Baby.” His saxophone transported audience members and, it seemed, members of the orchestra from a 1,200+ person venue to a dark and smoky jazz club inches from the stage. For the length of the solo, no one took a breath, and for a moment, all there was in the world was his music. It was a Blues solo at its finest.
The second set was punctuated by the dulcet vocals of Ekep Nkwelle, who sang a spiritual version of “Mary Had a Baby” and then upended all religious expectations with a downright sexy version of “Santa Claus, Santa Claus.” Nkwelle’s vocals during “Santa Claus, Santa Claus” felt straight out of film noir with desire, danger, and pain clear as day, while Chris Lewis’ solo put an exclamation point on the number.
As the night came to an end, the hometown crowd responded to the orchestra’s take on holiday classics with their you ain’t heard it this way before swagger, with a standing ovation.
Setlist:
Set 1: Here Comes Santa Claus> Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel>Blue Xmas (to Whom it May Concern) > Merry Christmas Baby > (I’m gettin’) Nuttin’ for Christmas
Set 2: Up on the House Top > Mary Had a Baby > Santa Claus, Santa Claus >Blue Christmas > Frosty the Snowman
The Big Band Holidays show has two more performances at Rose Theater on Saturday the 21st and Sunday the 22nd.
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