T’was The Night Before Hanukkah

The Musical Battle Between Christmas and the Festival of Lights

Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation, 2012

This Double CD is a wonderful mix of holiday songs from both sides of the aisle. With a little bit of everything for most everybody, this is a musical potluck to savor over the holiday. There are Jewish artists performing Christmas songs and Christian performers giving us their take on Hanukkah songs. This isn’t so strange considering Irving Berlin, a Jewish Russian immigrant himself) wrote the iconic holiday standard “White Christmas.”

First up is a tribute to the Festival of Lights, mixing traditional songs with some less serious novelty numbers. There are two renditions of “Rock of Ages,” one by David Putterman and the other by Sol Zim with the Hebrew title “Ma’oz Tzur.”  Famed cantor Yossele Rosenblatt’s “Yevonim” is another highlight. Lighter moments include Woody Guthrie singing “Hanukkah Dance,” and Don McLean’s poppy “Dreidel,” which seems odd and out of character. The CD closes with a high note of blues guitarists Jeremiah Lockwood, Ethan Miller and Luther Dickinson, jamming first on “Dreidel” before the song transforms into the Zydeco standard “Iko Iko.”

On The Merry Christmas disc the back to back combination of The Ramones “Merry Christmas, I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight,” followed immediately by Mel Torme’s warm baritone delivering a smoky rendition of “The Christmas Song” is irresistible. Benny Goodman’s completely forgotten “Santa Came in the Spring,” is included here, and it’s displacement from the canon of holiday music seems criminal.

The best thing you could do with this collection is download it to MP3, press shuffle and play. Be sure you open your windows to share with your neighbors.