A great reason to party

It is too early to tell but I think I may have already found my favorite Christmas album for 2008. I have noticed that one of the things I now associate with the celebration is the CD by which I will remember the year. There is usually a deluge of Christmas albums towards the last few months. Some great. Some so-so. Some you would not even want to recycle as gifts. Out of these I would pick one or two to keep and from then on play every Christmastime.

I love the choices I have made in the past, like those albums by The CompanY, Jose Mari Chan, the San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale, Kenny G, Luciano Pavarotti, David Foster, Josh Groban, Frank Sinatra, Andrea Bocelli, the Jackson Five and many others. I still enjoy listening to them every year. And then as of this writing I have playing my pick for this year, the wondrous Songs of Joy & Peace by Yo-Yo Ma & Friends.

Yo-yo Ma is the famous Chinese cellist who was born and trained in the US and is the brother-in-law of Filipino classical guitarist Michael Dadap, who is now based in New York. My enthusiasm for Songs of Joy & Peace would have really soared over the top had Yo-yo invited Dadap to join him in this project. Well, he did not. Perhaps in the future. But he did come up with a most interesting, most talented and truly eclectic set of musicians to make up his friends in the album.

Now eclectic is a word often used to describe Yo-yo Ma’s music. He plays anything on his cello. Aside from classical, he has done jazz, pop, Latin bluegrass, movie scores and many others. His idea of a Christmas album is no different. Songs of Joy & Peace is a mixed bag of beautiful tunes. What is remarkable about the package is the way Ma was able to make all of them sound Christmasy and how he successfully strung them together to create a Christmas party atmosphere.

Serving as the anchor track is the traditional prayer, Dona Nobis Pacem. That means Give Us Peace. This opens the album with Ma on the cello graced by a counterpoint. From there improvisations of the same tune by Ma with other musicians resurface at various times. Before a jazzy You Couldn’t Be Cuter by Diana Krall and bassist John Clayton, or with Edgar Meyer on the bass and Chris Thile on the mandolin after James Taylor’s Here Comes the Sun or as a countermelody to Auld Lang Syne by trumpet wizard Chris Botti.

Ma goes in full rein around the world, Africa, Brazil, Ireland, Hawaii, across musical styles, jazz, spiritual, Latin, merry reels and jigs and a very wide swathe of musical instruments, bagpipes, violas, harps, fiddles, a tabla in between those Dona Nobis Pacems. An excellent example is Joy to the World, which could have been a very simple carol. But this one has two cellists, Ma and Matt Brubeck, who is Dave’s son, who of course plays the piano along with Latin clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera.

Simplest among the tracks is the Sinatra classic My One and Only Love with Joshua Redman on the sax. In contrast, truly epic is the exotic Kuai Le with Wu Tong on sheng and vocals. This is a virtual introduction to the music of the world. Performing in this cut is the famous Silk Road Ensemble with Siamak Aghael on santur, Nicholas Cords and You-Young Kim on violas, Sandeep Das on tabla, Jonathan Gandeslman on violin, Joseph Gramley and Shane Shanahan on percussions, Siamak Jahangiry on ney, Kayhan Kalhor on kamancheh, Kojiro Umezaki on shakuhachi, Wu Man on pipa and Daxun Zhang on contrabass. Whew! Must try to find out what some of those instruments are.

In between you will hear Allison Krauss with the moving Wexford Carol or Natalie MacMaster fiddling in a medley of A Christmas Jig and Mouth of the Tobique Reel. You will be surprised when you hear the ukelele in Happy Christmas (War is Over) with Jake Shimabukuro and thrilled with Renee Fleming’s majestic soprano in Touch the Hand of Love.

Of course, the cello by the host sounds absolutely divine. Usually somber, it is here an instrument of joy. Yo-yo Ma has found a great reason to party. It is in pursuit of peace for all peoples in the world and he came up with the music to go along with it.

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