My Christmas podcast is here. Christmas podcast? A reading of Luke? No, a music podcast, I mean. I don’t think I’ve missed one in the last many years. I might have lapsed one year or two — either because of grinchiness or because of (other) deadlines and such.

This year, I have some traditional carols, such as “Angels We Have Heard on High” (never-disappointing). I also do a brief tour: starting in Renaissance Spain, then going to France, then Germany, then Italy.

Let me quote a little bit:

Schubert wrote a lullaby in 1816. A long time later, in the 1930s, another Austrian, Alois Melichar, gave the lullaby Italian words: “Mille cherubini in coro” — “A thousand angels in chorus.” And the song became an Italian Christmas carol.
Cultural appropriation? That’s how culture works, baby, always has.

Toward the end of the podcast, I have a spiritual: “What Month Was Jesus Born In?” It is sung by Odetta (whose full name was Odetta Holmes, although she performed under just the one). The double bassist who accompanies her is Bill Lee, father of Spike.

Hang on, I forgot to mention Bach — whose music is heard earlier in the program: a blast from the Christmas Oratorio (and a blast it is, one of those rousing choruses).

I close with George Shearing and Mel Tormé — not together, though they performed together. They were favorites of Ed Klum, whom you will see eulogized in a column I wrote earlier this month, here.

Merry Christmas, musically and otherwise.