Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon Web page)
Many readers probably know that I tend to shy away from holiday-related music; and, since I have been a confirmed atheist for about 40 years, I am even more reluctant when the holiday is a religious one. Nevertheless, I have to confess that the latest album released by composer and vocalist John Paul McGee, entitled A Gospejazzical Christmas, piqued my curiosity. It followed up on Gospejazzical, Vol. 1, which was released a little over a year ago. As of this writing, both of these albums have Web pages on Amazon (the above hyperlinks) that only account for MP3 downloads.
McGee himself describes the term as “a pianistic amalgam of gospel, jazz and classical genres.” I have not listened to the Vol. 1 album. However, it did not take long for me to realize that the new seasonal release never really does justice to any of the genres that have been amalgamated. Furthermore, the closest McGee gets to the classical genre can be found in the prelude by Frédéric Chopin that introduces “Mary Did You Know” (composed by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene); and that presence of Chopin is entirely ignored in the track listing.
There is little more I can say about this new album, which will be released this coming Thursday, other than Ebenezer Scrooge’s immortal catchphrase, “Bah! Humbug!”
No comments:
Post a Comment