Kevin Bresnahan

Today I broke down and bought the $8.99 download of Joey DeFrancesco's "Home For The Holidays" from Amazon. I wanted the 2-CD set but I've never found an affordable copy and it doesn't make any sense to pay crazy money when I can get it all for $9, even if I don't own a hard copy. FWIW, these downloaded files sound very good to me.

I actually gave up and got the download files. They are clearly from the masters and sound great, so I really can't complain too much. I do have a nice playback setup (Raspberry Pi4 with Volumio) for my mp3 files in my main listening room, so I'm OK with it. I'm about to pay for the mp3 downloads of the Joey DeFrancesco holiday set for the same reason.

Although I've listed many of these in other threads over the years, here are some more jazzy Christmas albums I've picked up over the years: Barbara Dannerlein - Christmas Soul Bobby Timmons - Holiday Soul Christian Sands - Christmas Stories Eddie Higgins - Christmas Songs (Venus) Jeff Hamilton - Merry & Bright Tim Warfield - Jazzy Christmas Tony d'Aveni - Winter Wonderland Urbie Green - A Cool Yuletide

I have to admit, until I read his obituary, I was unaware at the breadth of his playing. I thought he was a straight-up jazz guitarist. What an incredible discography: https://www.discogs.com/artist/268217-Phil-Upchurch?superFilter=Instruments+%26+Performance. He played with so many artists across genres from jazz to blues, from funk to rock, from R&B to gospel... even multiple Christmas albums... he was there.

Guitarist Phil Upchurch died November 23rd. He was 84. Looking at his extensive discography, I'm surprised I saw him up on a stage playing Jazz several times, with the last time most likely being the only time I managed to see Jimmy Smith live. His obituary almost glosses over his Jazz credentials to focus on his hits with Michael Jackson. https://variety.com/2025/music/news/phil-upchurch-dead-guitarist-composer-1236599436

I was only able to see them live once on their lone tour of the east coast a looonnnng time ago. They were great then too. If these shows had happened during the summer, I might've made the trip one of the bennies of being retired - but not just after Thanksgiving. Also, I was under the impression that these were anniversary celebrations and not an indication that the band was back to doing live shows on a regular basis. Last I heard, they were on a bit of a hiatus. They haven't released anything since 2017.

Which eventually (inevitably?) morphed into a 38 CD set in 2019. If you want to hear that, get your wallet out as it was very limited and goes for big bucks today.

JD Allen - Love Letters (The Ballad Sessions) (Savant). I like ballad dates for listening while eating dinner. This one is very well done. Pianist Brandon McCune is a new name for me (though it looks like he's been on the scene for quite a while) and he plays very nicely here. Another name to watch for I guess. Weird that the subtitle is "The Ballad Sessions" since it was recorded in one day. I haven't seen Allen play live in a long time. There was a time when he seemed to come through Boston 2 or 3 times a year.

Mags is going through a tough time right now with the death of his wife. The holidays can be the toughest time of the year.

These are sold.

I seem to remember those Firestone & Goodyear LPs in my parents' record stash. My brother might have all of those Christmas records. I was offered them when my parents passed but they were very heavily played on an old console record player, probably with a ceramic cartridge and usually with them stacked 3 or 4 LPs high. I actually did take one home - Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" but it was so scratched up, I could barely hear the music. Record care was not a thing back then.

When I was a kid, my parents played Mitch Miller & the Gang's "Holiday Sing Along With Mitch" quite a bit. I remember singing along with my family, although singing might not be the right word... more like screaming along with Mitch.

The Go Fund Me to help Richie is still live if you feel like helping him: https://www.gofundme.com/f/coming-together-for-the-great-jazz-pianist-richie-beirach

I'm still surprised that this 2-CD set has never been reissued. It's virtually gone on the market. There's been one for sale on discogs for crazy money for several years and the history shows only one sold. You would think Joey's estate would put this out. I think this year I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy the mp3 downloads from Amazon.

That's what it feels like when I take a bunch of CDs into a used store.