Very Full Weekend+ (12/10–12/16)

Saturday afternoon was Holiday Songbook I, with the music of Jay Alan Zimmerman, consisting of sixteen songs, all of which were holiday themed. Representing crass commercialism (and fun) was Buy! Buy! Buy! which melded well with the fact that Mr. Zimmerman’s published holiday songbook is now in print and available. If memory serves, all of the songs we heard on Saturday afternoon are available in the print version.
 
It’s somewhat hard to do an all-holiday-themed show (there are just so many regular and off-the-wall scenarios to be dealt with), but this was a fun afternoon. Mr. Zimmerman repurposed a few existing songs with Emmanuel (a reworking of
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel), sung by Matt Case, and Carol Loves the Bells (probably my favorite title of the show), sung by Casey Erin Clark and the guys from the entire performance cast. Both were quite interesting. A patter-style, Grinch-like Happy Jolly Merry Headache, sung by Doug Shapiro, was also fun, as was Gingerbread Man, sung by Angel Desai and a pair of backup singers, Stephanie Joyner and Tony Ramos. Not listed on the program was a rather ribald The Perfect Gift which was essentially a musicalized orgasm. The plight of the homeless was brought to light in No More Room, where a homeless man,
Ritt Henn (also the terrific bassist for the afternoon) is down on his luck and a somewhat ghost-like choir intones, “No more room,” in nice harmonies.
 
A “trunk song” (one written a while ago but then for some reason tucked away), Mistletoe Manipulation, was brought out and given a first performance. The nicely sung duet eventually brought Ray Zanders and Mariana Barbosa together for a Christmas smooch. A Little Holiday Secret dealt with a gal, Tiffan Borelli, who lets her atheist Jewish fiancé, Ross Urken (actually Tiffin's husband), know that she really, really, really likes Christmas. It was fun and enjoyable.
 
Quite touching was Time to Find Home, performed by a deaf actor,
Stephen Drabicki, and sung by Angel Desai. It was doubly effective
in that Mr. Zimmerman himself is a deaf composer. His deafness was a direct result of the 9/11 attacks, though he’s kept on composing ever since. Holiday Zombie was a bit of a hoot and included appropriate zombieography.

The show finished with a touching duet, Silly Star, sung by Mr. Zimmerman and his 21-year-old (if I’m remembering correctly) son Zachary. It’s one of the first songs he ever wrote and was quite appropriate to end the afternoon with.
 
Sunday afternoon found me out in the cold at Rockefeller Center where, in front of the famous tree, 424 tuba players took part in the 43rd Annual Tuba Christmas. From the beginning organ-like sound of O Come, All Ye Faithful, which was really awe inspiring, to the final notes of Jingle Bells, it was a fun afternoon. I’ve attended this event at least a couple of times previously, and every year they announce that they’ll play each song twice—first for us to listen to and second for us to join in and sing. It never works. We, as a crowd, are just too far away and dispersed for any type of cohesive choral sound to be effective. A few of
us valiantly sang along, but it still just didn’t work. Favorites included the sacred (We Three Kings, Away in a Manger, etc.) and the secular (Deck the Halls and the aforementioned Jingle Bells) and, possibly my favorite, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, where the tubists stop playing in the middle and they sing to us! At approximately forty minutes, the concert was just the right length for me, though I know that others in the crowd got there up to thirty minutes ahead of the start time.
 
Monday evening was Holiday Songbook II, a more typical songbook in that more than one composer was featured. In this case there were sixteen different composers/teams with seventeen different songs performed. Many, though not all, of the songs were specifically written for this occasion, or at least written with Holiday Songbook, generally, in mind. As always, and including Songbook I, hearing new songs for the first time doesn’t necessarily give a lot to go on in terms of really commenting closely. In this case, some really crackerjack performances/
performers made me like some songs better than others. Not new, songwise, was the choreographed trio to Bette Midler’s recording of Cool Yule that opened the performance, with loads of fun.
 
A very timely We’re Not Going to Talk about …, sung by Danielle Trzcinski (also the lyricist), was all about holiday get-togethers where politics, as a discussion subject, is off the table. Until some of the guests get a little too much in their cups. There was some funny stuff here. Also very funny and effective was Beth Glover singing By Christmas, as a somewhat snooty mother trying to convince her son to ditch his current girlfriend or she (the mother) would be dead by Christmas.
 
Michael Linden and Larry Owens did a bang-up job of Sam Salmond’s Make My Yuletide Gay and Mr. Owens was positively manic in Will Aronson's and
Bill Nelson’s Oh My God I Love Christmas—an adult going all-out bonkers with the excitement of Christmas. With Polkadots Christmas, from Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical, Brittney Johnson gave us a Motown pop-style up tempo rendition of a song set to a sort of music minus one soundtrack—she was singing live to a recorded track that included backup singers, as well as performing with a live piano accompanist.
 
The Christmas Tree Blues was funny, even allowing me to jot down some of the lyrics by Sam Carner (music, Derek Gregor): “I’m as blue as any evergreen could be,” and “Ain’t no way I’ll make it to spring … on my very last ring,” sung by Solea Pfeiffer. Then the dysfunctional family was represented again in Merry Christmas, with Grampa getting drunker and drunker. There was even a reference to that other holiday via the lyric, “Happy gin & tonic-a.”
 
Snow Day, with music and lyrics (and sung by) Jessica Ann Carp gave us hearts full of sorrow, pleading that these current times make us need some calming snow. The piece was scored for piano, violin, cello and voice, and the cellist made a special trip from North Carolina just to appear in this concert with Ms. Carp. That’s holiday spirit!

Joey Contreras’ First Sign of Forever was given a touching performance by
Mia Gerachis telling of finding a new love at this special time of year. As a finale, we heard a rather adventurous, if slightly uneven, Focus on Tomorrow (music: Jake Chapman, lyrics: Henry Nettleton), that was a retelling of the nativity story through the Bailey children from It's a Wonderful Life. There were some good ideas, but it was a little on the long side and a little flawed.

Still, and I say this every time, it's astounding that so much talent (all volunteering their time and energy) is on display at every one of these Songbook presentations. I got some Christmas presents early this year. (Apologies for not naming every composer, lyricist and performer.)